Nothing To Say
by anime fearie
Summary: Sequel to'I Must Be Insane'Tseng and Reno have started to hate each other a little being the only two Turks left in Shinra and they have to find out what is happening to Soldiers going missing. Hopefully getting their new Turk Rude will help them out.
1. Overworked

Warnings, Disclaimer, Greetings, Recap and Summary – in that order

_This fic will be rife with swearing, violence, bad jokes, drug taking, drinking and possibly some described nakedness. Insert general 'please don't read if under aged, to cover my ass' here. This is rated MA for a fairly good reason._

_I do not own most of these characters, I just like to make them dance for my own amusement and the amusement of others and I make no money by doing this mores the pity._

_Greetings all! Due to semi-popular demand this is the sequel to 'I Must Be Insane' and I hope you all enjoy this fic as much if not more than the original because that is the entire aim here. If you have not read 'I Must Be Insane' that is okay, the recap will probably tell you everything you need to know and if you are curious enough you can always go back and read that one too. But there will be spoilers for that fic in here so please be warned._

_So a very quick recap first to get you all in the mood. The original fic was such a long time ago we'll do a quick refresher. (If you have read the story recently or remember it well feel free to skip this part, it isn't important unless you don't remember the first fic much) _

_The first fic had Reno working as a Rebel for an ex-Turk named Rankin in the slums. Through bad luck and him being who he is, Reno got into a bit of an altercation one night with a band of Terrorists and Turks and after using both sides against one another in order to facilitate his own escape the Turk Leader of the time, Hawkly, died. The Rebel House he works for tries not piss off any one big group in Midgar in fear of retaliation and so Reno is sent to the plates in order to formally apologize for his role in the Turk Leader's death and try to make amends to the remaining Turks so the Rebel House would not be blamed. Reno chose to make his apologies to the most levelheaded Turk he could think of and picked Tseng. So after a bit of paranoia on Tseng's part Tseng and his partner Dallen put Reno to work for them to retrieve some files from a rival company in order to help them out. While this was going on it becomes apparent that another Turk named Arkette and his partner Gafford were plotting for Arkette to be next Turk Leader before Tseng – the other candidate for the job – and having Reno recover these files made Tseng look good to the President and he was promoted over Arkette. Tseng also offered the job of Turk to Reno who flat out refused rather violently and tried to escape the Turks. The resulting damage to his body earned him a mako infusion in order to save his life. After that, instead of disgracing Tseng, Arkette decided to kill him instead and anyone sympathetic to Tseng to make himself not only Turk Leader but with sights on becoming something more within the company. When Tseng was called away on a mission Reno and Dallen confronted Arkette and Dallen was killed. Dallen gave Reno his beloved nightstick and some good advice before dying and Reno went into hiding having been accused of being the one to murder Tseng's partner. Once Tseng returned to Midgar, Reno managed to convince Tseng he was innocent and filled Tseng in on the plot against him. Working behind the scenes, Reno helped Tseng find out about the plot to also kill Rufus Shinra, one of Tseng's strongest and only allies left within the company. Reno managed to foil the plot in time and save Rufus's life, which earned him some prestige with the President and he could therefore come out of hiding again. Tseng admitted to Reno that he needed his help now more than ever and Reno grudgingly accepted the job offer and became a Turk in order to help out Tseng and bring down Arkette who he really hated by this point. Reno decided to play Arkette's game and got rid of Arkette's only ally and killed Gafford. Then together Tseng, Tarran (a rebel and Reno's best friend) and Reno took down Arkette during his second attempt to kill Rufus. Arkette was killed. Tarran went off to work in Junon Shinra Security, a position Tseng helped him get as a thank you and Reno joined Tseng in the ranks of the Turks, the only two Turks that were left by this point._

_ Wow, I spose I do have a bit of an imagination…I maintain that's mostly a good thing though _

_ Now this story will begin about eight months after Arkette died and Tseng and Reno are still the only two Turks working for Shinra. Two Turks to do the job of five. Things have become a little tense between the two._

_ Enjoy!_

Nothing to Say

By AF & Ace

Chapter I

Overworked

**The Last Few Months In The Life Of**…

**…Reno…**

**Part I – Work**

"Oh, give me a break, that guy came nowhere near me!"

Tseng was blowing it all totally out of proportion as always. So what if he, Reno, cut a few corners in an effort to get a result. So what if he hadn't waited for backup before going after that guy Freeman? All Solider would have done was slow him up, ask stupid questions and make far too much noise. Why wait for that when he could just as easily sneak in and take the guy out with the minimal of fuss?

According to Tseng he should have waited because Freeman already knew he was there. How could he hope to sneak up on someone who was ready for an ambush?

To which Reno had replied something in the way of, "Of course I could still catch him out because I am the better and that Freeman couldn't have smelt a surprise attack if it had been rolling in Midgar prime sewerage minutes beforehand."

As it turned out, Reno had been lucky not to have caught a knife in the ribs. Tseng had subsequently pointed this out rather angrily.

To which Reno had further replied, "Yeah, but which one of us was carrying the big fuckin' gun? Not the dead guy in the city morgue, that's for damn sure."

**Part II – Friends**

"You broke into my office this morning didn't you, you little son of a bitch."

Reno grinned but didn't look up from the game he was playing. A driving game on the GamesSystem he was currently winning.

"What makes you think that?"

Rufus frowned but he didn't dare take his eyes of the television screen either. "When I came in for work this morning everything in my office was facing backwards as you damn well know. I had a meeting with my father first thing, as you probably also well know. It didn't make a good impression."

Reno tried not to laugh. "I did it last night actually."

"Splashback from the cafeteria incident no doubt?"

"Very perceptive. You think I was going to let you get away with standing in the middle of the café with loudly telling me that I wasn't your type and I should stop stalking you? That wasn't very funny."

"To me it was. You were complaining how boring it was around work. But anyway, that stunt with my office, you do realize this means war, don't you?"

"Rufus, I was flat out counting on it."

Part III – Relationships

"Oh gods, Reno! Yes! Yes! YESSSSSssss!"

**…Tseng…**

**Part I – Work**

Tseng was currently trying to beat down the insistent urge to hurt his second in command. After the last few months it had become a rather big urge.

"You got lucky, admit it. If Freeman had a gun, you wouldn't be standing here smiling."

But he was, oh how he was. The cocky little bastard did have a point in some ways. Not matter how reckless he was – and he was with greater and greater regularly – he almost always got results. Tseng's bosses were gushing over their latest Turk like Reno was the star they had all been waiting for. Since his joining the ranks, he saved Vice-President Shinra three times, President Shinra once and erased in one way or another more Shinra opposers than the company was even aware of having. Reno had contacts, good instincts, well-honed skills and he used them all to his best advantage.

Of course, Tseng's bosses didn't have to deal with the little twerp on a day-to-day basis now did they? He was way too cocky and self-assured, way too self-reliant and had no sense of authority or feel for the chain of command. And while Tseng knew Reno's own safety was in jeopardy he also knew full well that when Reno went all vigilante he put those around him in danger also.

"But I am, Tseng. So where's the big foul?"

Tseng slammed his palm down onto the table in frustration. "Burrows, Soldier Third class who is currently lying in the infirmary care of a stray bullet tossed off by one of Freeman's lackeys!"

This quieted the Turk a little. "Oh yeah. How's he doing anyway?"

"He'll be fine." Tseng admitted. "Bullet really only grazed him. But I warned you about things like this. It could have just as easily killed him."

To Tseng further infuriation, Reno shrugged. "But it didn't. And didn't I tell you that Soldier would only get in the way? You know how I don't like to say 'I told you so'."

Tseng gave up. He was getting a headache.

**Part II – Friends**

Tseng's headache was in full swing by the time the phone on his desk rang, again.

He snatched it up and answered it with an aggravated "What?"

He heard laughter.

"Killed him yet?" Rufus asked innocently.

Tseng growled and slammed the phone back down.

**Part III – Relationships**

Tseng sighed as he let himself sink into his favorite armchair. Grabbing the book from the table next to him he put his feet up on his footstool and opened the book to the page where he'd last left off.

* * *

><p>"Gentlemen, have a seat."<p>

Both Turks looked at each other once before both seemed to decide to just wait and see what was up. They watched their boss gracefully seat himself in his big leather armchair before both taking the proffered chairs in front of them.

Rufus leaned forward over his desk, planting his elbows and touched his fingers together. He gave them both a worryingly casual smile. "It would seem we have a problem," he began once they were seated.

"Problem, Sir?" Tseng inquired politely.

Rufus compressed his lips together for a little while before answering. "Well, I'm at a loss at what else to call it when both my Turks almost get themselves killed in a running gunfight taking place throughout the streets of topside Sector Five. Heavily populated streets bathed in the closest thing Midgar ever gets to bright daylight, I might add." Rufus paused here and eyed each Turk in turn. "What would you have me call it if not a problem?"

"An accident," Tseng supplied.

"A disaster," Reno threw in.

Rufus pretended to think their answers over. "Actually I quite like Reno's description. Has a ring of truth to it."

"Sir, it was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I assure you that we would never-" But Rufus cut Tseng off.

"Never endanger the image of the company, not to mention hundreds of lives just for a pissing match against a band of terrorists?"

"Of course not. And if Reno had simply-"

"Whoa there. You are not pinning this on me, Tseng. I didn't think-"

"Exactly my point! Reno, you don't think! You just walk around the city like you belong there and nobody will notice. You aren't a nobody anymore, people will recognize you."

"Did you just call me a nobody? Don't forget that it was this little nobody that you begged for help not all that long ago."

"Begging? More like numbly accepting-"

Rufus sat there throughout the argument with a weary expression. Since Reno had been a Turk this is how most Turk meetings usually ran. Which is why Heidiggar had palmed them off on Rufus for the time being. Just sorting out their fights could take days and reading their reports was more like a case of 'he said'/ 'he said'. The problem wasn't that Tseng and Reno were naturally argumentative people, despite the fact that all they did lately was scratch and bite at each other like two cats tied up in a bag.

The problem had more to do with the fact that the two of them could not carry the Turks alone. For the first time in Shinra history, the Turks had been operating with only two Turks in its ranks, and doing it for over eight months. Less than a year ago there had been five Turks. The workload hadn't changed and that left Tseng and Reno doing the job of two or more men each and precious little time left over to relax. They spent most of their time in each other's company and for two so very different people, it almost seemed to amount to torture to force them together so often. And little could be done to alleviate this. Turk training had been all but cancelled since Tseng's old partner had been killed because of the lack of qualified personnel to do the actual training. What made it worse was Reno himself was still a relatively new Turk. True, he had performed exceedingly well under the pressure forced onto him as a result, but that didn't automatically mean that he knew all he could know about being one of Shinra's elite. And if things didn't start to look up, odds were he'd never fully learn.

In the last year Shinra had lost four of its Turks – three of them thanks to Reno himself – and it would take years to swell the ranks again. They simply couldn't wait that long. Rufus could see a point in the near future where Shinra had lost all their Turks, whether to an enemy or at each other's hands, it was too close to tell at present.

"Look, that's enough," Rufus interrupted them both. "We're all friends here so I hope I can talk candidly."

"Of course," Tseng affirmed.

"Whatever," Reno muttered.

"Good." Rufus took a deep breath. "You both are in deep shit. Don't give me that look, you've been getting the job done, but any more complaints like this, or off either of you and I seriously think the President might start to think that giving your jobs to Soldier might be a more valuable and cost effective way of solving his problems. And don't think you guys aren't expensive. Your pay and what goes into your resources is the largest budgeted sub-branch department in the company and that includes the entire first grade of Soldier. I happen to think you are worth it, but I'll be in the minority soon if things don't start looking better."

Rufus paused and looked at a sheet of paper in front of him. "And no more petty complaints lodged against each other, okay? This stuff goes on your record. No wonder Heidigar doesn't want to deal with either of you at the moment. His pride in the Turks only lasts as long as the President has praises for you himself. Look, I know, you're both overworked, tired and sick of each other but I'm hoping we might be able to resolve this today."

For once, both of the Turk's shared looks wasn't one of annoyance. They both looked slightly panicky.

"Please don't say Solider," They both begged at once.

Rufus grinned. "Hardly. I was going to say 'Turk'."

"Umm…" Reno began.

"Rufus, we don't have recruits anymore. You know that." Tseng finished for him.

"No, you're absolutely right, we no longer have anymore Turk recruits. But you're forgetting what a far-sighted man your ex-partner could be sometimes, Tseng," Rufus told him smugly. "You have an already trained recruit that Dallen had been preparing for almost a year before. I'm surprised you didn't remember this sooner."

It took a few moments before Tseng did seem to remember. Then his face matched Rufus' own expression.

Rufus continued. "You already have a trained Turk at your disposal, even if he does have to officially be a rookie for a little while yet, he may just be the help you need to get yourselves out of this slump."

Tseng nodded in understanding while Reno started to look very worried. Surprisingly, he kept his thoughts to himself.

"Where is he now?" Tseng asked.

"He went back home to his old job," Rufus informed them. "I'm going to send for him today and I expect you both to help him fit in. This means try not to fight with each other and don't get him killed. Consider it an order."

"Yes Sir." Tseng replied obediently even if he looked like he may not believe his own promise.

"Blow me," Reno responded sweetly.

"You know this is your fault right?" Reno told Tseng as they made their way toward the elevator bank.

Tseng had wondered how long it would take for Reno to start bitching. He was however, surprised at just who Reno was bitching at. "What is my fault exactly?"

"That Rufus thinks we're not getting along," Reno told him as though it were obvious. They stopped by the elevators and Reno gave the call button a vicious stab. "If you didn't put in a complaint about me every day, he wouldn't get these ideas," Reno continued.

Tseng watched his obviously irritated co-worker for a little while before he decided to give in. "Reno, we _don't_ get along."

Reno's brow crinkled as he looked up at his boss. "We don't?"

Tseng sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose in a very weary fashion. "Think about it for a moment."

After a few moments of quiet contemplation Reno had to admit that Tseng had a point. "Okay, so maybe we have our differences. But I'm actually trying to be nice here."

The elevator arrived and as they stepped inside Tseng asked. "Blaming me is being nice?"

"It was your idea to hire me, ya know. What are the bosses gonna think if you start harping on about how crap I am considering you were the guy that decided to give me the job in the first place?"

Tseng very much doubted those were Reno's true motivations behind this. It had taken Tseng a while to figure it out but Reno often did and said things without even the slightest bit of reason or intention. He mostly just said things like this to him because he was bored. When Tseng had first realized this he couldn't quite believe it. Reno was bored? How could anyone possibly be bored considering how much work they did? There wasn't generally a second of the day where they could sit around and relax and here Reno was, antagonizing Tseng simply because he was bored. Tseng then further realized that it wasn't because Reno didn't have enough to do, it was because he had too much to do. Or possibly because he had too much of the same thing to do. While Reno might have been physically taxed by his new job, he wasn't exactly mentally taxed doing the same kinds of things day in and day out so he inflated problems and just generally tended to make every task he did more difficult than it actually was just to give himself something interesting to do. He didn't lie, he wasn't inventing disasters from nothing, but it wasn't helping matters either. Reno had never had a nine to five filing paperwork kind of job in his life and so dumping him into a role that was half like that, half getting shot at the rest of the time probably wasn't the best way to ease him into it.

But despite everything, no matter how Reno got on his nerves, no matter how much trouble he got him into, Tseng couldn't bring himself to think that he'd made a mistake hiring him. One day, Reno would be very good at his job once he had a moment to really settle into his position, Tseng really believed that. And he wished not for the first time that he could have had the luxury of properly teaching him the ropes like any other Turk candidate would have had. But it was not to be and at this point probably never would be. Tseng trained him whenever time permitted, but it wasn't often enough and Reno's training had become on the job learn as you go type of thing more often than not. But in all honesty, if it hadn't been for Reno, Tseng knew he would not have been able to handle this on his own. Reno didn't balk at something just because he didn't know how to do something. If he didn't know how to do something he'd teach himself how to the best of his ability and then do it anyway whether it was the right way or not. And usually it turned out fairly well.

Out of nowhere, Tseng gave him a small smile. "I don't think you're crap. I sometimes think you are a dangerous menace to yourself and those around you, but you aren't crap."

"Gee, that makes me feel a whole lot better, thanks Tseng," Reno told him sarcastically.

"It may seem to you as though we are being punished right now, but we aren't. Getting a new Turk will be a good thing. It will ease the workload at the very least. A new Turk isn't going to make our lives more difficult."

"Sure, and as people I've found Turks and those who want to be Turks a friendly and easy going bunch of guys. C'mon Tseng, this job attracts assholes and sadists and you fucking know it. This new guy could just turn out to be another Arkette."

"He isn't, I know him. And I wouldn't be so quick to judge, you are a Turk too you know. What was that you were saying about assholes and sadists?"

Reno gave Tseng a half smile, "I never said I wasn't one either."

"This man was hand picked by Dallen. You can relax. You've met him, though I doubt you'd remember it. His name is Rude and you briefly sparred against him once before you hightailed it through an air vent in the gym to escape us."

Reno seemed to spend a few moments wracking his brain before his eyes widened just a little. "Gods Tseng, that guy almost dislocated my jaw! Holy fuck, are you sure we aren't being punished?"

"I'm not. Though perhaps maybe you are."

"Ha ha, very funny." Reno quieted down for a few moments and watched the view of the city as the elevator descended before he spoke again. When he did speak it was in very subdued tones. "Look, Tseng I know you were pushed into having me here. And I know I'm not the best suited for this kind of a job and I also know that you don't particularly like me. And that doesn't really bother me to be perfectly honest. So if this new guy works out, well, maybe we can call it quits."

Tseng had realized Reno wasn't having the time of his life and that he was a little frustrated by the work and the amount of it, but he never would have thought Reno wanted to quit. He was surprised to say the least that Reno might offer that kind of an alternative.

"You think I don't want you here anymore?" Tseng asked with genuine surprise.

Reno seemed just as surprised with the response. "Have you ever really wanted me here?"

"I can see why you might think not," Tseng replied after a few moments. "But I had been entertaining the idea of recruiting you ever since that first night in interrogation, I just never told you. After that job you did for us it was Dallen's and my intention to put you in the training program and yes, circumstances might have forced us to skip the training part of it, but we did everything in the understanding that you would become a Turk someday. For an untrained teenager, you seemed to have great potential. My personal relationship with you doesn't change the fact of the matter that you have skill for this."

Out of all of that, Reno seemed to choose the safer ground of trying to pick a fight again. "Ah-ha! So you do hate me!"

Tseng rolled his eyes, "You're such an annoying, irritating, infuriating…" Tseng made himself focus again. "I don't hate you, Reno. You annoy me to the point that I would have killed you by now if I did. For better of for worse you are now my second in command. Until of course you manage to get yourself killed in the field or irritate me so much that I do decide I hate you and kill you myself."

"Okay fine, but you can't kill me yet. You still need me for the time being, remember?" Reno reminded with a grin.

It was what Tseng had told Reno that had ultimately gotten Reno to take the job in the first place when it seemed as though nothing else would convince him. It was probably the first time Reno had ever heard anyone say it to him in his entire life and since then had relished in the opportunity to remind Tseng just how much he needed him. It made matters worse that it was still true. Reno might seem lazy but he did get things more or less done when asked nicely enough. Without him here, Tseng would have been completely drowned by the workload.

They were friends in a way though in a very particular way. They saw each other more often than either of them saw any other individual. Actually Tseng saw Reno more often than he spent time alone or asleep. And it had been that way for almost a year. He supposed it wasn't surprising that they were sick of the sight of one another. It wasn't even as if they would have been friends at all unless forced into this situation. But they were, sort of, because Reno had a good habit of saving his life and always had his back when Tseng needed him. He supposed it went both ways but they were getting more and more antagonistic towards each other and it was beginning to develop from a friendly sort of bickering to an almost vicious animosity toward each other. Not often, but with increasing regularity. The only thing that was saving them both at the moment was their own common sense to back off from one another before it became properly violent. It was only a matter of time before it came to blows and Tseng knew something had to change before it got that far.

He'd never had problems like this with another person before. With anyone else he could always remain calm, composed and unworried. Reno just had a certain way of getting under his skin that provoked a temper in him that he had thought was long forgotten. He didn't know why, but it was a problem. Spending more time away from one another seemed like the best possible solution and gaining another Turk was the only way that was going to happen unless one of them quit. Of course Reno seemed to be thinking about it now, but Tseng didn't really believe he would. Reno was living a different life now. He had money, some power and was getting to flaunt his skills and get a bit of a name for himself. He'd never had anything like this before and knowing what a show off Reno was, that would be enough to keep him here for the time being.

"So when do you think we'll get the new guy? I know Rufus said he was going to send for him tomorrow, but the guy still has to pick up and move his entire life, right? That could be months away."

"Months? No, he should be reporting for duty at latest on Saturday. Rufus said he would send for him tomorrow, that means he will travel the day after and start work the day after that. He is currently a Shinra Trooper, picking up and moving his entire life isn't alien for him and he would be living out of the barracks in Junon anyway."

Reno's face screwed up in distaste. "A trooper? Um, aren't they dumb as doornails?"

Tseng frowned at him, "That's an unfair generalization."

Sort of.

It wasn't that troopers were generally as dumb as Reno said, but they did come with an unfortunate tendency of not being able to think for themselves too well. Reno being Reno mistook obedience for stupidity. But for Troopers it came from being ordered around by loud aggressive Sergeants for their early training and it was hard to break the average Trooper out of that predisposition to be a willing lamb. Not that Tseng had a problem with anyone that might follow his orders at this point without question. After spending so long with Reno as a subordinate and him arguing over almost every decision he made it would be a pleasure to have someone who didn't question him.

But Reno had a point, with Troopers it was ingrained in them to wait for orders and not act on their own and that could be bad for a Turk. Thinking on your feet and making snap decisions was what sometimes saved you or your partner from death in many a circumstance. Reno was pretty good at things like that. He only ever followed orders pretty loosely to begin with, so a sudden changes in the game plan wasn't an uncommon scenario for him to deal with. This was how Reno was used to working. A Trooper just wasn't trained to think that way.

Still of course there were exceptions. Dallen's chosen hadn't been headhunted then put into the training program like most recruits were. This trainee had applied for the position. The fact that he had applied for the Turks was proof in itself that he wasn't the normal type of 'yes, sir' Trooper that Tseng might have feared. That gave him some sort of hope. Most Troopers tended to apply for Solider, not the Turks. Still, Tseng knew him, he had helped Dallen with the man's training, but Tseng had to admit, he just hadn't seen the spark Dallen had assured him was there. To Tseng the man had seemed quiet, a little reserved and to be honest, just a little too unimaginative for what the job would require. Credit where credit was due though, he was a hell of a fighter. Reno was good, he was skilled and fast, learnt quickly and was very adaptive for most situations. But Rude didn't need to be adaptive, he made other people need to adapt to him. He'd seen Rude knock out more than a few other recruits with a single punch enough times to know it wasn't a fluke. He knew precisely where to hit people and how much force to hit them with though generally he just tended to hit them hard. He could take people out with the minimum of effort while Reno, who lacked that kind of precision and strength, eventually had to win unarmed fights through wearing them down, breaking bones or worse. Rude would simply floor them without fuss or much injury.

Still, while Reno would never have the same strength, he could be taught precision and was constantly improving. Rude probably would not. He was very good at what he did, extremely good, but by the end of the last year of his training his skills had plateaued and didn't show improvement thereafter. That wasn't to say he had done badly, he was a magnificent fighter, had brilliant accuracy with most types of guns and was at top of his class. But the fact of the matter was that he would probably never be much better than he was right now and in six months to a year's time Reno would begin being able to more than keep up with him and would probably get better still.

The Turks needed more because of the small but elite force that they were. They didn't need top of the class; they needed exceptional. And unless the spark that Dallen saw manifested itself soon, Tseng feared that Rude would just become another Hawkly. Good, but not practical for the Turk's needs. It was a pity really that Rude decided on the Turks, he would have made an exceptional Solider. Dallen had told him once that he'd asked Rude the same question. Why the Turks, why not Solider? Apparently Rude had replied that he wasn't good with swords and that he'd prefer to work with his hands. As far as Dallen had been concerned, this had been the response that won him over for Dallen entirely. He could see why, with Dallen's sense of humor. But only if Rude had been making some type of joke. If he'd been serious, well, that was a little disturbing.

Tseng had been lost in thought for some time and had been following Reno without thinking. Only now did he notice that Reno had stopped and was looking at him expectantly.

"Am I boring you or something?" Reno asked.

"You must have been," Tseng replied after realizing Reno had been talking to him and he hadn't taken in a word of it. He took a look around. They were in the gym locker room and Reno was in the middle of changing into the loose pants and shirt he wore for sparring. He was half dressed and looking at Tseng.

"We have training tonight," Tseng guessed after a moment.

It was Thursday, and that meant it was his night to train Reno in hand to hand. Initially Tseng had designated four nights a week for training Reno but most of the time they just didn't get around to it. Reno needed the training, but sometimes work kept them busy till the late hours and neither Turk could work up the energy to train or even deal with each other for any longer and skipped it in favor of the five or so hours of sleep they might be able to get before the new workday began.

Tonight they had finished up early and that meant training. Tseng couldn't work up much enthusiasm for it, though. He hated to admit it, but he was tired. By this point Tseng had been working for over a fortnight without respite, having to work last weekend – normally his weekend off – in order to help Reno out with a terrorist emergency. They had a roster to work and normally neither Turk would work so many days in a row without a break, but necessity sometimes outweighed relaxation time and they took days off whenever they could fit them in more often than actually following their working roster. So many long days in a row were starting to take their toll though and Tseng was very tired. But it was so rare that he got to train Reno though so he just resigned himself to his fate and started tugging off his tie.

Reno pulled on the sleeveless shirt and leant against the lockers, watching his boss with a thoughtful expression.

"What?" Tseng asked irritably.

"I saw Rogers on my way in. Why don't I train with him tonight? I owe the bastard from last week for those bruised ribs."

Drew Rogers was a Solider Second Class that Reno got to sporadically train with. Sometimes when Tseng couldn't make it to training, he would set up Rogers to train with Reno. The only drawback was that Rogers generally had sword practice, not hand to hand and while Reno seemed to like the challenge of fighting a skilled, armed opponent, Rogers was a good fighter and Reno often came away from the fights with numerous welts and bruises from where Rogers had hit him with the wooden practice sword.

"You need practice blocking more than evading," Tseng told him after giving the idea some serious thought. "You practice sword fighting too often for a Turk. I know I told you it would give you focus but you need hand to hand training more at the moment. Besides, I need to show you a few things. Maybe another night."

It might have been Tseng's imagination, but he doubted Reno's offer had anything to do with preferring to spar with Rogers more than Tseng. He actually got the impression that Reno was trying to let him off the hook. While he was mildly impressed at Reno's rare show of compassion, he was a little annoyed by it as well. Today, Reno had done just as much work as he had, and he didn't like the implication that he needed the night off more than Reno did. Tseng never liked the idea that being more than a decade older than the younger man meant that somehow he had less energy, less stamina. It made him feel old.

"C'mon you can get some rest."

"Let it go, Reno. You don't need a break, neither do I."

Reno smirked. "You really should go home and get some beauty sleep. You aren't getting any younger you know."

Deep down, Tseng knew that Reno actually meant well. It didn't however stop him from getting really annoyed by the stupid little bastard.

"Knock it off and go work with Rogers while I get changed," Tseng snapped at him.

Reno let out a long breath and surprisingly let the command slide by without retaliation of some sort. He left the locker room without further comment. At least that made Tseng feel a little better. If Reno wasn't up to starting an argument with him then he was far more tired than he seemed.

So much for the vitality of youth.

TBC

* * *

><p><em>Notes: Well well well, things aren't exactly happy families are they? And what will the new Turk think of the organization once he arrives? Neway, this was a huge chapter to kick us off, don't get too used to it <strong>Review, review, review<strong>. This is the first chapter to a very long semi awaited sequel and I need my ego stroked. But seriously I am very curious to see if anyone is reading._

_Hugz_

AF & Ace


	2. Rude's First Day

Nothing To Say

Chapter 2

By AF & Ace

Rude's First Day

Every fortnight the two Turks took turns covering the weekend shifts. Weekends could be slow due to having almost no demands from Shinra because the general workforce didn't work over the weekends. Weekends were usually spent dealing with individuals who didn't take weekends off - like bad guys - and the general housekeeping of their department This weekend was meant to be Reno's rostered weekend off, but because Tseng had been called in last weekend, they had decided amongst themselves that Reno would take the Saturday shift so Tseng could at least have one entire day off barring any emergencies.

However, Rufus's plan to have their new Turk begin on Saturday threw a spanner into the works. Tseng needed to be there on Rude's first day and Reno did not. Friday was such a busy day for Tseng that he couldn't take that day off either. So instead of messing around with their already messed up rosters, Tseng simply decided to give Reno his usual weekend off. He could ease Rude into the job for the first two days and then take Monday and Tuesday off, leaving Rude in Reno's hands for two days, for better or most probably, for worse.

Reno wasn't about to disagree with the idea of having the entire weekend to himself. In fact, he looked practically giddy at the prospect and Tseng could understand why. Generally having a weekend off meant you were supposed to be off duty till the shit hit the fan, signifying your days off were over. This happened more often than not. Having Rude here meant that Tseng was less likely to call Reno into work unless he really, really needed him. This idea of perhaps not being called in had never happened in the entire time Reno had been a Turk. Plus Reno had never had much money in his life and now that he had a very well paying job, even by plate standards, he was constantly inventing new and thrilling ways of pissing it all away.

He just couldn't get his head around the concept of plate life. The apartment he'd rented was a good testament to this. While there were no slums plateside in Midgar, Reno found the only apartment building with slum-like qualities and immediately moved in. He could have afforded a little luxury, a cleaning service, someone to cook his meals every night but the idea was so alien to him that it had never crossed his mind that he could have these things. Reno's apartment was a dingy little affair that the lowest plate dweller in the most menial job would have thought was decrepit. Reno stuck with it even though he seemed to hate it there because he said it felt like home to him.

Reno found other, more exciting means of spending his newfound wealth. He donated a lot of money to slum charities, a fact he tried to hide from Tseng for unknown reasons. The rest Reno spent every night off that he ever had getting drunk off his ass or worse in some club or bar somewhere. This new hedonistic lifestyle he'd adopted seemed to be the only way these days Reno had to let off steam. As far as Tseng could tell Reno didn't have a lot of friends in Shinra, at least not close enough to spend a lot of time with after work hours. None of his old slum friends seemed to want anything to do with him anymore and Tarran, Reno's best friend, moved to Junon and wasn't around anymore. Tseng assumed the drink, drugs and random sex with strangers worked for Reno for a couple of reasons. It gave him an outlet to unwind after being frustrated by work and also gave him a social life he was missing out on as a direct result of working long hours and the simple fact that he was a Turk now and generally disliked by almost the entire populous of Midgar.

Tseng might not approve of Reno's lifestyle, but he pretended to ignore it most of the time. If Reno knew ahead if time that he was working he would never come to work under the influence of anything other than the occasional hangover, so Tseng could assume that he wasn't letting this venting overrun his life. That was a big reason to leave off the berating. The other one was that Tseng firmly believed that once Reno had it out of his system, got over some work related frustrations, he'd get over this particular form of entertainment. If it turned out not to be temporary, Tseng would then consider taking steps, but for now he tried to turn a blind eye to it. It was only a very small issue right now and until it became a major problem, Tseng didn't see the point of fighting about it.

"There's this club on Wentworth that is like this bar, drug den and S&M club all rolled into one. Last time I was there I couldn't walk straight for two days afterwards and I still can't even remember why." Reno wasn't even pretending to do his paperwork at this point after receiving the news of his weekend off.

They were in the outer office working over some of the more urgent paperwork of the week. Tseng was trying to get his work finished but Reno's happy chatter and the bone weariness he was feeling from the week was not helping him focus. "And you find the idea of that fun do you, not remembering how you got into that state?"

"Hey, I might have been hurting afterwards but I was pretty relaxed for like a week after. I might not remember it, but it must have been fun at the time."

"Reno, not one word of what you just said to me made any kind of sense."

Reno yawned. "I'm not surprised. Your idea of fun is a book, some classical music and a glass of water. Boretastic. You know, you should come with me one night, let your hair down."

"I think I'll pass," Tseng told him, trying to return to the task at hand. "Call me crazy, but taking drugs, getting drunk and then having public sex with some stranger doesn't interest me."

Reno smirked. "Crazy."

"Do I need to remind you that you will still be on call this weekend? If something goes wrong I will need you lucid. And clothed."

"Yeah right. I'm sure you and Wonder Boy, chosen of Dallen, could save all of Midgar from the ravening hordes for one little bitty weekend."

"I'm serious, Reno."

"So am I. According to this guy's record, he should be a better replacement for me than…well…me. You won't need me."

Tseng gave up on the paperwork. It was after seven on a Friday night and they should both have gone home hours ago. It was obvious that Reno wasn't going to get any more done today and Tseng supposed that there was nothing left that probably couldn't wait until tomorrow. He sat back in his chair and casually threw his pen down onto the pile of papers in front of him.

"You're right, he's had a lot of training. But he has no Turk experience. You and I know you can handle yourself in bad situations. I will not risk mine nor a trainee's life on a mission just so you can get laid."

"Whatever, but if you do call me in I at least expect a blow job in recompense."

He couldn't help it, Tseng laughed softly and shook his head. "There is something very wrong with you, Reno. Has anyone ever told you that?"

Reno's grin only widened. "Only about a hundred or so times."

* * *

><p>The very next day Rude stood in the Shinra Plaza, looking up at his new place of employment.<p>

Rude had thought he would never come back here. After his sponsor had died he had stayed in Midgar only for a short time before they had shipped him back to his old job in Junon without much of an explanation. Basically, his sponsor was dead along with three other Turks and the remaining two just weren't around for training. Sure, there were other trainers but they were mainly Soldier trainers and without actual Turks to train them there was nothing really for the recruits to do but have their training suspended and go back to their old lives until they could be recalled. _If_ they were ever going to be recalled.

Rude had been a little surprised at first that he was sent away. Dallen had practically told him that he was 'in' the last time he had talked to him. Tseng had found a new recruit as well and therefore a new partner to be and Dallen was free to bring Rude in as his own partner to complete his training and become a full fledged Turk. Well, things had obviously not happened this way. Rude had been very sorry to hear about Dallen's death because he had genuinely liked his sponsor a lot and had looked forward to working with him. But on a slightly more selfish level he had wondered what might happen to him because of it. But nothing had really happened. He had been put on assignment in Junon and not heard a word since. Until now.

He had to admit, he had wondered at the time that if the Turks were so understaffed, why hadn't they used him in the first place? Rude had assumed that he had simply been forgotten about. Apparently this was not the case. Someone had remembered about him and needed him now and so here he was, back in Midgar, wearing the suit he'd hoped to be wearing over eight months ago now and seeing the Shinra Tower in a completely new light than he ever had before.

He must have seen the tower hundreds of times in the past but he'd always felt like a bit like an outsider. In his years as a Trooper he'd never once actually been assigned to any of the Midgar divisions and so had only ever been in the city during his Turk training. Rude hadn't been officially working here, merely training, and so he never really ever got the feeling of Midgar being his home. Training meant a temporary home in the barracks and a temporary life in the Tower.

Now the whole place seemed to have a new meaning for Rude. It was his new job, his new start and his new home. But if anything, that actually made the Shinra Tower seem even more imposing than before. With a big sigh, Rude looked away from the Tower and toward the lobby doors. Well, he might as well get his new life started. Finally.

He was under orders of the Vice-President to report to him first before he was allowed to meet up with Tseng, his new boss. So Rude went up toward the top of the tower in the elevator, admired the rather dizzying view of out the clear glass wall of the elevator for a good few minutes before the elevator pinged and he got off on the right floor. He introduced himself and gave his name to the VP's secretary who stared at him blankly for a few moments before replying..

"But you aren't one of the usual ones."

"I'm new," Rude told her shortly. He had been fairly sure he'd mentioned this already to the woman.

Even after hearing it a second time, the secretary still stared at him blankly for a couple of moments more before she suddenly smiled as though she'd figured out the joke. "Reno's such a card isn't he? He's always trying to trick me with his games. What's your real name, please?"

"Rude _is_ my name," Rude repeated patiently. He wasn't unused to this, but this woman seemed denser than usual.

She looked on the verge of denying it again but the main office doors opened and Rufus Shinra poked his head out, probably to see what all the talking outside his office was about. Rufus took in his appearance before raising an eyebrow at him.

"Rude, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"C'mon in."

Rufus disappeared back into his office, leaving the door open for Rude to enter after him. When Rude entered the office, Rufus was already back behind his desk, tapping a pen on some paperwork on his desk and reclined back comfortably in his chair. He gave Rude a smile. It wasn't a very warm smile. Rude had the impression that it was a smile Rufus put on automatically and without any real feeling behind it. The smile was charming enough, but it just didn't quite reach his eyes the way a genuine smile should.

"Close the door and have a seat, Rude. It's nice to finally meet you after hearing all about you from Dallen."

Rude took his seat with a little trepidation. Dallen had been a good guy, but he tended to embellish things a bit if it suited him to either make himself or someone else look better. Or worse. Or just because he felt like being funny.

Rufus seemed to catch something in his expression, "Don't worry, it was all good. You might be wondering why you were asked to come and see me before anyone else."

"A little, Sir."

"Well, frankly Heidgar won't have anything to do with the Turks at the moment so your introduction to your higher department head will have to wait till later. Apparently they've irritated him to the point that he doesn't want to deal with them anymore. So I have been overseeing the department lately trying to get it back on track. Don't get me wrong, our Turks are a formidable pair and good at their work but I have to be frank about this because I don't want to you to stumble into this totally unawares. Our Turks have been having some problems lately. You know Tseng of course; I believe he used to help Dallen train you occasionally. I can't remember if you ever met our other Turk, Reno, or not. He was still very new when you were sent back to Junon."

Rude remembered him, alright, Reno definitely made an impact on someone when they met him for the first time. Still, it had been a while ago now and it might be difficult to remember exactly what he looked like, but he remembered the jokes, the fight and the escape through the air vent. Things like that tended to stick in your mind.

"We met," was the short answer.

"Well, this is the part where I tell you about my ulterior motive for bringing you back, but I'll get to that after I tell you the main reason. The fact of the matter is that our Turk ranks have never been this depleted, ever, as far as I know, and this means that the two remaining Turks that we do have are struggling to keep up with the workload. Dallen gave you the highest recommendations to join the Turks and now that Reno has settled into his role as much as it looks like he's ever going to I feel a little more comfortable adding you to the roster as well." Rufus spread his hands. "They need the help and Dallen assured me that you have the skills, so here you are."

He leaned forward, making eye contact with Rude. "Now we get back to my other motives. And don't get me wrong, the reasons I just stated are why you are here, not for what I am about to tell you about, but I figure that while you are here, I might as well put you to work on a special assignment as well. As I stated before, we are experiencing some difficulties with our two Turks at the moment. Not that they aren't getting the job done as best, or even better than can be expected at the moment, but they are not getting along."

Rude knew he didn't change expression or make a sound, but Rufus continued as if he had. "I know, it sounds stupid, but I am concerned that if the relationship between Tseng and Reno doesn't improve soon, it will start to seriously affect their work. They have shouting matches in their offices, they complain about each other relentlessly and Heidigar got so sick of their bitching that he will no longer see either of them in his office." Rufus made a 'what can you do?' shrug and continued, "For now they report directly to me and I intend to sort this mess out before they try to kill one another. What I want you to do for me, Rude, is watch them. Report back to me on how they are getting along and just how this bad blood between them is affecting their work. I need to know if they can continue to work together or if it is time to maybe start looking for a new job for Reno."

"What if Reno isn't the problem?"

This time Rufus's smile was a little more genuine. "Reno is definitely the problem; he's always the problem. Besides, Tseng is perhaps the best Turk the Company has ever seen and Head of the Department to boot. Even if Tseng threw the little punk off the top of the tower he would still be Turk Leader the next day because he's far too valuable to lose. And it probably wouldn't be like Reno didn't deserve it anyway."

"You want me to spy?"

Rufus waved him off with a lazy gesture. "Spying is such a harsh word. No, I don't want you to begin your Turk career by spying on your fellow co-workers. What you will be doing for me is just telling me your opinion of the situation for the betterment of them both. You don't need to snoop, you don't need to dig for secrets, just watch, listen and give me your opinion of the situation. I need to know if them working together is going to be a problem or not for the Company and for the Turks. Do you understand?"

Rude understood, he also understood that it would indeed be spying and he didn't like the idea very much. But how do you turn down your first ever Turk assignment – one given to you by the Vice-President himself? You don't, not if you wanted to keep your new job, new life and new start.

"I understand, Sir."

"Good. Tseng should be in his office, you go and report in."

* * *

><p>Rude found Tseng in the outer office of the Turks department, head bent slightly over some papers. It was still early in the morning, well before nine but it looked as though the Turk Leader had been here for hours, working on whatever he was working on. Tseng looked up, though, as soon as Rude stepped through the door and gave him a brief smile.<p>

"Nice to see you again, Rude. I imagine you've been to see the Vice-President already?"

Rude nodded.

"Good. Why he feels the need to come in on a Saturday just for this is beyond me, but you'll find that our Vice-President is very attentive to the departments underneath him."

Rude didn't miss the subtle hint behind the words. Tseng was tactfully telling Rude that the VP had a habit of butting in. Well, that was fine so long as Tseng wasn't under the impression that Rufus wanted to see Rude first for any other reason other than being a little anal about things.

"Well we should probably get started," Tseng announced, standing up. "We'll go over the basics first and see how much you remember from your training and determine what, if anything, needs further work. We'll start with the physical side first and come back to the theory later unless you have anything you would like to ask before we get started?"

Rude shook his head.

Tseng gave him a larger smile this time. And unlike the VP's smile this one was genuine.

"I could get used to having my orders followed so easily. I think you will fit in here very well indeed. Follow me, Rude."

The entire morning was spent with Tseng testing his field skills with fighting, firearms, etc. There was no part during the testing that Rude felt he was doing badly. He'd been in Turk training for almost two years and he knew he was ready as far as this stuff was concerned.

Tseng then ran over some theory with him which Rude admittedly had a little trouble following. General rules and regulations he was good at memorizing, but tactics was clearly lacking. Tseng didn't seem particularly bothered by this, though.

"Dallen was talented in a lot of areas but he wasn't the best strategist in the world, so I'm not particularly surprised. We can work on that, it isn't a problem. As for the rest, you're more than capable. You just need to be a little more familiarized with the job and you'll be ready."

The boost in confidence was appreciated and Rude hadn't realized that he'd been a little apprehensive about Tseng's opinion of him.

"I know this has taken most of the day but I still have a full workload and I-"

Tseng was interrupted by his cell phone going off. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered it, listening intently for a few moments before saying 'Yes, Sir," and hanging up.

"Something up, Sir?"

"Yes, unfortunately. Something very big. Heidigar has just informed me a couple of 2nd Class Soldiers that have gone MIA. We need to go out into the city to collect them tonight when it will be dark and quieter on the streets. Security has found their location but has been recalled because they are ill-equipped and too busy besides to deal with this kind of situation."

"Does this happen often?" Rude asked, surprised.

"No." Tseng replied shortly.

Rude got the distinct impression that this was a bigger deal than he imagined it was.

"What does that mean, Sir?"

Tseng sighed, "This means we're going to have to do something I'd really rather not do."

"Sir?"

"We're going to have to find Reno and tell him his night off is over."

TBC

* * *

><p><em>Notes: Okay so this chapter was a little small, but it's better stopping it there before we get into the action. Pls <strong>review<strong> it makes me happy Thanks to those who reviewed the first chapter you made my day and I really appreciate the kind words and frankly I love you guys *grins* you know who you are, stop blushing._

_Look out for the next chapter when all three of our boys get together for their first even mission as a team._

_Hugz_

_AF_


	3. Not What You Expect

_Chapter re-edited 28th August 2011._

**Nothing To Say**

Chapter 3

Not What You Expect

Finding Reno's exact whereabouts wasn't all that difficult. Apparently all you had to do was look in the loudest, most complained about, most drug-infested club in the whole of Midgar and there he was.

When he and Tseng walked into the club, the first thing to wash over Rude was the sound. It had been loud outside, but nothing prepared him for the deafeningly loud up beat sort of metal that assaulted his ears with bruising intensity inside the club.

It wasn't a typical sort of dance club, that was for sure. For one thing the music was heavier. And although people were, Rude supposed, technically on a dance floor, he couldn't be entirely sure in the dim lighting whether they were dancing, enthusiastically fucking or rhythmically trying to beat the shit out of one another.

Tseng was scanning the crowd for their wayward Turk. He made a 'come here' gesture at someone and soon after a body came hurtling uncontrollably off the floor, through the press, and straight toward the Turk Leader. Rude was about to shout a warning to Tseng that he probably wouldn't have heard anyway, but with the fastest reflexes Rude had ever seen, Tseng managed to step out of the way and grab the arm of the man, pulling him to a stop before he could hit a table.

Tseng didn't look impressed. He kept a hold on the man's arm and started to drag him toward the door. Rude caught up with them outside where Tseng was just in the process of dumping his captive onto the curb. Rude took a look at the man in a little confusion. Sure he'd almost collided with a Turk, but damage hadn't been done and he failed to see the reasoning behind dragging him outside. However when Tseng yelled at the man, "How many gods forsaken times!" Rude realized that they had indeed found Reno.

Now that they were outside, Rude started to recognize him. The fiery red hair was a bit of a giveaway, but he hadn't expected to find a Turk in this kind of state. They'd always seemed sort of staid. Even Dallen, who'd been his mentor and always up for a laugh had probably never been dragged half naked out of a seedy club by his boss.

Reno sat on the curb, head down, dressed only in black leather pants and boots, steam rising from his back from the sudden change in temperature. He wasn't exactly what Rude had expected. Sure their first encounter had been pretty interesting, but the man was still a Turk, right?

Eventually Reno raised his head and squinted up at his boss. "At least half a dozen. I keep telling you, Tseng, if you don't wanna drag me out of clubs, don't come lookin' for me on my days off."

"Trust me, I'd prefer not to. But we have a situation."

Reno let his head loll backwards with a groan. "You have to be fucking kidding me. You can't take me out on a job tonight, I'm a little under the influence."

"Of what?" Tseng replied testily folding his arms over his chest.

Reno snorted. "You name it, I'm probably on it. I've put so many things up my nose tonight I'm surprised I have a nose left. I've ingested things I don't even know the name of. I'm buzzing so high at the moment I'm always surprised when I check that my feet are still touching the ground. And don't even get me started on whatever that green stuff was that we were drinking a while ago. I feel I must warn you, putting a gun in my hands tonight would be a massive breach of public safety."

"Normally I'd agree. I'm pretty sure I'd agree on that even when you are sober, but I have no choice. We have two Soldiers to bring in. I need the backup. You can't worm your way out of this one."

"Here's a stupid question, but um, why don't you take someone from Soldier then?"

"I was given orders not to include Soldier in this. I hate to admit it, but I can't go with only myself and a rookie Turk. It will endanger us both."

"Rookie?" Reno asked. He cast his eyes around till they somewhat focused on Rude. "Oh hiya. We've met right?"

"Yes."

But Reno had already shifted his attention back to Tseng. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but this rookie here was Dallen's protégé for like a year or more right?"

"What's your point?"

"Well, he's gotta be better backup than me anyway, right? Had more Turk training than I ever had."

"Reno, if I had five Turks at my disposal tonight I would take them all in. These are Soldier Second Class. Two of them. Why am I even explaining this to you? Do you even understand how the chain of command works? I give you an order, you are supposed to obey it!"

"That must have been part of all that training I missed out on 'cause I don't remember you and Dallen covering that. Look, I'm fried, toasted, cooked. Get someone else."

"There is no one else. Otherwise, believe me, I would. You are supposed to be on call anyway, how could you let yourself get into this state. Again!"

With movement Rude had been sure the Turk was no longer capable of, Reno launched himself to his feet and stood in front of Tseng. Furiously, he hissed, "When am I not on fucking call! Ever since I started I've either been working or on call to work! So have you. How can that not piss you off beyond all reason when you can't even unwind properly for one single fucking night?"

"Because for some of us, unwinding and relaxing isn't getting themselves so off their face they can't even remember what their name is anymore!"

From what Rude had been lead to understand, this is not how Turks were supposed to act. These two seemed about ready to start a fight in the street. Frankly, they bickered like they were dating. It was a little odd, and what was even odder was how Tseng was acting. Rude had known him for a while now. He'd always seemed so cool, calm and collected. He'd never heard Tseng raise his voice once before tonight. Although that could have something to do with the fact that he'd never met anyone who argued with him either. You had to be suicidal to argue with the Leader of the Turks.

"Just stop arguing, you're coming."

"Fine, I'll stop. Just say the magic words."

Tseng looked at his subordinate like he wanted to murder him. "Go fuck yourself."

"Close, but not quite."

Tseng took a deep calming breath that didn't seem to work. "I need you."

Reno unexpectedly grinned. "Was that so hard?"

Tseng didn't answer him. "Where's your shirt? You can't come half dressed."

"Oh I dunno, it's better than coming when fully dressed if you ask me. Less mess."

Tseng glared at Reno's idea of a joke.

Reno eventually shrugged. "Who knows, I lost it inside."

"Go and find it!"

Reno rolled his eyes and trudged back inside. A few minutes later he reappeared wearing a navy button up shirt. It looked a little too loose on him,

"Where did you get that from?" Tseng asked apparently coming to the same conclusion as Rude -that the shirt wasn't Reno's.

"Some guy. Had to dance with him for a few minutes to get it off him, though. Don't give me that look, you do what ya gotta do right? Besides, how d'ya think I lost mine? Right now some girl in there has a two hundred-gil shirt wrapped around her waist. Anyway, what does it matter? I'm dressed, let's get this over with. Preferably before the owner of the shirt realizes I'm not coming back with drinks anytime soon."

"Are you armed?"

"Tseng are _you_ high? Who takes a gun when they go out to a club?" Reno watched Tseng's expression for a few moments before apparently deciding he didn't need that question answered. "I have a knife in my boot. As if I could hit the broad side of a barn at the moment anyway. Don't suppose you bought my nightstick, did you?"

"It's in the car."

"Awesome. Let's go hunt some Soldiers."

* * *

><p>Despite Tseng's comments about often having to drag Reno out of bars, Rude assumed that this was an odd occurrence and that Reno was usually never called in to go out on jobs in this state. He couldn't understand how Reno was even conscious, considering how many things he claimed he was on. But when they got to the address, Reno got out of the car surprisingly alert and level headed, considering he'd been snoring only a minute beforehand. The only conclusion Rude could draw was that Tseng knew Reno would be able to handle himself no matter what. It was frightening to imagine how Tseng arrived at that conclusion.<p>

Reno looked up at the multilevel building in front of them while Tseng watched him.

"Are you on an 'up' right now, or should we wait?"

"I'm alright, I won't crash out on you. You want I should go up the back way?"

"That's what I had in mind. Just try to act sensibly would you? I don't want this out on the streets if we can avoid it. And remember what I told you, we need them alive if at all possible, but if they resist we need to take them down. Understood?"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first six times. I still think Soldier should be cleaning up their own mess."

Tseng smirked at him. "Can you really see Soldier coming in here and cleaning this up nice and quietly?"

Reno shared the grin. "Good point. Oh well, sucks to be the best, I suppose. But just so you know, I'm about to climb up a wall wearing leather pants. If I fall I want my hospital bills to come out of Soldier's budget, you got that?"

"Just go. And don't forget your radio."

Reno secured the special belt that held his nightstick around his waist and jogged off around the corner of the building, out of sight.

Tseng motioned for Rude to follow him and they entered the building through the front doors.

"Reno will have to climb up a little to get to the fire escape, but he'll beat us there by a few seconds."

"That weapon he had," Rude began, "are those usual Turk issue?"

Tseng gave him a small smile as they started up the stairs. "No. You have a good eye. That's Dallen's electro-mag rod. He showed it to you, did he?"

"He wore it a lot." Rude replied and let the conversation drop.

Of course he hadn't been told much about how his mentor had died. Initially he'd been led to believe that Reno did it, but obviously that wasn't the case. Sure, he didn't think Shinra was above hiring the man who had the skill to kill off a Turk, but he found it impossible to believe Reno would still be breathing if Tseng truly thought he'd killed Dallen. Besides he'd also heard rumors that two other Turks had plotted to kill the Vice-President and Dallen had lost his life trying to foil the plot. Rumors couldn't always be relied on. And here was Reno, mysterious newcomer, running around with Dallen's most prized possession on his belt.

Answers to these questions could wait, though. They had reached the fourth floor and Tseng bought out his gun, flicking the safety off while he did so. Rude did the same.

Tseng silently counted them down from three and kicked the door in, breaking the feeble lock from the doorframe in the process.

The two men inside had been seated at a table near the center of the room and jumped to their feet when the door burst open.

"If you come quietly, nobody needs to die here," Tseng told them coolly.

Apparently the Soldiers didn't believe him. They shared one look before turning and making for the open window. Tseng shot one neatly in the leg but the man only stumbled a little. He was behind his friend now, blocking Rude's shot at the other man, so Rude merely shot the already injured man in his other leg. That was too much and the Soldier went down. Before he and Tseng could aim at the other man, a blast of lightning came in through the window, hitting the first man square in the chest, flooring him instantly. He made to rise again, but Reno stuck his head inside and shot him again with a smaller blast this time. The man stayed down.

"Gods, they aren't half tough to put down are they? Freakin' Soldiers, I tell you." Reno said hopping into the room properly. He gave the nearest Soldier a kick and the Soldier groaned a little. "Still awake, too. How much mako do they give these guys anyway? I could have killed a whale with that first shot."

"A lot," Tseng replied flipping open his phone. He was calling in the troopers to come and get the prisoners. Rude knew it was Standard Operating Procedure.

Reno wandered over to Rude and gave him a friendly grin. "So, how you likin' it so far? Living up to your expectations?"

Rude eyed him for a moment and the nightstick he had resting on his shoulder before replying, "Not exactly."

Drug addled brain and all, Reno seemed perceptive enough to read into that. He let it slide though.

"Oh well, you've been in the job a whole day now and no one has tried to kill you, so you're having a better first day than I did." He slapped Rude on the back companionably and then seemed to realize his mistake when he had to shake the life back into his hand. "I'm heading back to the club before my buzz is totally gone. Have fun with the cleanup, kiddies. I'll see you on Monday."

Tseng hung up the phone just as Reno waltzed out of the room. He glared at the doorway Reno had just disappeared through for a moment but he didn't bother calling Reno back.

"I suppose it's better no one sees him in that state," Tseng admitted after a few moments. "He's okay while the action is going on but if he's just hanging around waiting, he'll get fidgety."

"This happens often?" Rude asked.

Tseng seemed to sense what Rude was thinking. That Reno was some sort of hyped up junkie lowlife.

"Just when he has a few days off, never when he's on duty. He's had a difficult year and I can understand his need to let himself go once in a while."

Rude nodded. He understood a little as well. He'd been based out in Junon as a Trooper but he'd been in Midgar for over a year while he'd been in Turk training so he understood what Turk life meant. Dallen had not been one to hide the gritty truth from him. The thought of only two Turks doing the same job five used to do was astounding. Rude could see after only one night the pressure the pair were feeling. They vented that frustration on each other by either fighting or joking but it seemed like an unhealthy way of bonding to him.

Oh well, when Monday came Tseng would have his own couple of days off and Rude would be partnered with Reno in his absence. Maybe after learning from Reno for those two days he'd have something concrete to report to Rufus.

* * *

><p>It wasn't as though the rest of the weekend was tough, but it <em>was<em> busy. Rude got the impression that Sundays were a bit of a catch up day for Tseng and he spent a lot of the time either doing paperwork or elsewhere in the tower dealing with the consequences of last night's mission.

Tseng mentioned having to question the two men from Soldier but he didn't invite Rude to join him telling him that interrogation was a tricky sort of deal and one Rude hadn't been properly trained in yet. Instead he set Rude up in the office with a bit of easy paperwork and went off to deal with it himself.

When he returned about an hour later he did not look happy.

"He's a stubborn one," Tseng told Rude. "And he's scared. I have too much of more importance to deal with today so Reno can deal with that one tomorrow."

"I thought there were two?"

"The one Reno electrocuted is surprisingly okay. The one we shot is due for surgery to fix both his legs and won't be properly coherent till Tuesday at the earliest. It's a Soldier complication apparently."

It wasn't much of an explanation but Rude didn't question it further. He sensed there were a lot of 'complications' that went on around here that he didn't know about. But the fact that Tseng wasn't being entirely forthcoming with these things wasn't particularly reassuring either, in a lot of different ways.

Tseng sat down behind the only other desk in the outer office, which happened to be Reno's, and glared and the untidy mess of papers that covered it.

"Somewhere in here there is a strategy plan I need for the security meeting this week."

Rude noticed he didn't seem to be in a hurry to go hunting for it though. From the look of Reno's desk, he could hardly blame Tseng for not wanting to dig through it. It would take hours for someone to sort that mess for one thing and for another, although Rude had tried to ignore it, sometimes the papers moved a little.

"It's like there's a teenager living here," Tseng mused as though to himself. "Oh, of course he is still a teenager. I forget that sometimes."

Well that was surprising news to Rude. He had guessed Reno to be in his early twenties, certainly not under twenty two. And that raised yet another question, why a teenager became second seed to the Turk Leader. Rude disliked asking personal questions most of the time but he was starting to wonder about Reno. It was about time he got some answers.

"What is he like to work with?"

Tseng had still been staring at Reno's desk and it took him a few moments to reply to the out of nowhere question.

"Reno?" Rude nodded. Tseng seemed to have to think it over for a moment. "That involves a very complex answer about a very uncomplicated person."

Rude just kept gazing at his boss as though waiting for him to continue. Tseng heaved a sigh and swiped a hand through his hair. "Reno is… well, Reno has the potential to be very talented. He's a good fighter, excellent with tactics when he bothers to use them and very good at problem solving. He is however woeful at recruitment for Soldier, has horrible people skills and sometimes the only safe place around him when he fires his sidearm is directly behind him. Fortunately he is working to fix most of these issues. Some of these issues. Well, one of them," Tseng amended honestly. "He lacks the drive to exceed you might say."

"How did he end up here when he's so young?"

"Ah. I said he was a teenager, that's not exactly true. He's twentyish. Probably. You are only, what, fours years older than him? Truth be known he might already be twenty one, he might be twenty or he might even still be nineteen, I wouldn't be surprised either way. If you aren't born in a plateside hospital you don't get birth certificates most of the time. Hospitals cost money a lot of people in the slums don't have and from what I understand his mother was…forgetful about such matters. He doesn't know when his real birthday is and neither do any of the authorities. There are a lot of people in Midgar who celebrate their birthday on the 1st of January and probably less than a quarter of those people were actually born on that day. And our Reno isn't even certain of the year. We haven't gotten around to issuing the proper identifying paperwork for him yet but when we do he can pick a new date then if he prefers. It took him weeks to decide on a last name, though, so I wouldn't think he'll get around to choosing a birthday for himself anytime soon."

This was all incredibly personal information Tseng was sharing with him about another co-worker and Rude had been unprepared that his boss would tell him so much. The concern must have shown on his face though because Tseng gave him a small smile in response.

"I would not tell you these things if I thought Reno would care in the least that you knew. If you were to ask him yourself he would no doubt tell you everything I have just told you and more. You have to understand that where Reno comes from his story is better than most. There are worse parents and childhoods to be had in our fair city than the one Reno had to endure. I'm not saying he's had an easy life, far from it, but even he considers himself pretty lucky compared to some."

Rude guessed he could understand that. But Rude couldn't imagine not knowing your own birthday. It was a simple thing but in a way it was also an important sort of personal identifier. In Junon you were considered a man at the age of twenty one because that was when you could drink in bars, carry weapons in public and other sorts of things. He knew that Midgar didn't really adhere to such rules and most of the populous figured that eighteen or even sixteen was good enough. But Reno would never know what exact day he turned twenty one. All he knew is that it would probably be next year sometime, maybe. It was pretty depressing to think about that all he had gotten out of his life as far as personal information was concerned was his first name. Or was it even that much?

"He didn't know his name either?"

"He is fairly certain his first name is Reno. Though he did admit to me one day that until he was four he did think his name might be 'Oi You'. He had thought it might have been a fancy Wutaian name or something. Yeah I know, I didn't think it was particularly funny either but Reno laughed his ass off when he told me. His last name though…" Tseng shrugged. "I don't know if he thinks it might be right or if he just made it up. He said he once introduced himself to a girl as Anderson and he decided he liked how it sounded when she said it."

"He doesn't take much seriously, does he?" Rude observed.

"Not a lot," Tseng admitted. "When it's really important most of the time he can be serious but generally he tends to treat his life like it's the funniest joke in the world. I suppose laughing at your misfortune is healthier than brooding over it."

"You two don't seem to get along well."

"Reno can be…difficult for people who aren't very easy going to deal with. I am, I'm afraid, very set in my ways. We get along, I suppose. More than that you could say we compliment each other professionally. There are certain things Reno has a knack for and I do not and there are certain things I am better suited for than he. These plans for security for example: I do what I think is right and then Reno takes a look and picks up things I missed or corrects things when he sees an error. He has a knack for tactics and problem solving that I am not so naturally talented at."

Well that was a careful way of not really saying anything.

"You seem very curious about our absent Turk," Tseng commented after a moment and Rude thought he might have given himself away before Tseng continued. "Are you still wondering why he has Dallen's weapon?"

Okay so not completely found out. "I wondered about it."

"Dallen gave it to him. I think there was something in Reno that Dallen saw in himself and that gave him a bit of a soft spot where Reno was concerned. Reno was with Dallen when he died, He tried to help Dallen even though he had very little reason to want to do so at the time and that would have meant a lot to Dallen. Well, you knew how he was."

"They were close?"

"No, not really. But I think they understood one another as though they were, if that makes any sense."

"You didn't see what happened?"

"I wasn't in Midgar when it happened," Tseng told him frowning. "But Reno told me what happened."

Rude didn't ask what he wanted to. Tseng obviously believed Reno hadn't been the cause of the other Turk's death and Rude didn't want to pry any more than he already had. But he still found it hard to believe that Dallen had bonded so much with someone so quickly when they hadn't been real friends before that. Dallen had loved that weapon, it was hard to understand but Rude supposed he'd have to trust what he was told because he had no real reason not to.

"But anyway," Tseng continued getting back to the original conversation, "I know Reno has his odd quirks but he is good at what he does. You might find tomorrow that he has a different approach to the job than I do but try not to correct him when he does something contrary to what I have told you. I will admit to you that you know more about official procedures than he does, I also know that you are better weapons trained and probably know more about the inner workings of Shinra than he does and this is because you have a head for those kinds of things and Reno does not. You also might find tomorrow that you disagree with things that he does and even know better how to go about the job, but I will ask you not to act on these unless desperately needed. You were molded by Dallen over years of training for this job and are better suited to it than Reno is for a lot of different reasons. But he gets the job done and while I think he could do to learn a lot from you, you still have a bit to learn what it is like to actually do the job yourself. Try to keep that in mind. I think it would beneficial for you to temper what you have learned from me with what you can learn from Reno using that incredible gift for logic you have that Dallen told me about."

He got the impression that Tseng thought he was reluctant to learn from someone so apparently inexperienced and young but that wasn't it. Rude didn't care how young he might be or who had the better training in the end. If Reno was half as good as Tseng, Rude really did want to learn all he could.

Even if Reno did seem a bit…strange.

* * *

><p><em>Notes: Right so we are almost caught up on intros and what's happening these days we can start to get into more of the plot in the next chapter. Well, a little at least. I'm looking forward to Reno and Rude being on their own for the first time and working together, should be fun. Please review, it makes me smile.<em>

_**Important: **Oh oh, and the subject of Reno's last name has come up. As far as I know he never had one so I just made one up for him. However, if he really does have a last name pls PM me and let me know and I will be very happy and change it. Just a caution though, if you do have a last name for me pls can you tell me where you got it from because I have done a search and I can't find squat. (Though my five minutes with google search probably could have been more thorough lol.)_

_Hugs_

_AF_


	4. A Day With Reno

**Nothing To Say**

Chapter 4

**A Day With Reno**

Monday morning rolled around and Rude came into the office to find Reno slumped back in his chair, sunglasses on, feet up on the desk and apparently asleep. He was wrong when he thought Reno was sleeping though. When he sat his bag down onto the other desk the man groaned.

"Keep it down would you?"

Okay so he wasn't asleep, just hung over.

Rude decided not to notice. He leant back on his desk and asked perhaps a shade too loudly, "So do we have any assignments today?"

Reno groaned again, lifted up one side of his shades and glared in Rude's vague direction.

"It would be in your best interests to not hurt my head unless you want the office to smell like vomit for the rest of the day." He focused on Rude a little more closely. "Oh it's you. We've met, haven't we?"

Rude wasn't sure how to respond. Reno must have known Rude was coming in today. He also hadn't obviously spared a thought about who he'd been speaking with, either. He settled for, "Yes."

Reno let his shades fall back onto his face and leant back again. "You have a mean right hook on you, I remember that. My jaw still isn't working properly because of you. You were with us Saturday too, weren't you?"

"You remember that?"

"Very vaguely. I should probably tell you not to let my behavior on that night give you a bad impression of me and all that garbage but it would be a waste of breath. Deep down I really am a degenerate and a fuckup, don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise."

Rude smiled a little at that. He wasn't sure if Reno was joking or not, but either way he found it a little refreshing.

"So…" Rude began again.

"We have several missions today. One of which is to continue interrogating those Soldiers. I take it Tseng didn't get very far. He doesn't really have the patience for it these days. We also have to check out another possible Solider recruit and after that we have to go meet up with a contact of mine who has some Intel for me about a new terrorist group. In between all that we have to somehow fit in some light paperwork, a couple of briefings, some follow ups with a few departments that can probably wait till tomorrow and oh, lest I forget, I have a meeting with Rufus which will be tedious and boring but at least I'll be sitting down. I may even be able to catch up on some sleep so long as I don't start snoring." Reno winced. "First mission for the day is to find some aspirin."

After rummaging around in his bag for a moment, Rude found some aspirin and fetched Reno a glass of water. Reno looked up with some surprise when Rude held out the items for him.

He took it and swallowed two aspirin straight up. "Thanks for that. It's Rude, right?"

Rude nodded.

"I'm Reno, though I'm betting you already knew that."

"Your name has been mentioned."

"Yeah I'll bet. Well, c'mon Rude, we'd best get the day started," Reno said, getting to his feet. "If you have any questions about anything we're doing today just go ahead and ask them. Just don't expect that I know any of the answers."

* * *

><p>It turned out that working alongside Reno wasn't half the chore Rude had anticipated. Both Tseng and Rufus had led him to believe that Reno was impossible to work with, annoying and brash and…well, he was a little bit. But Rude mainly found him very easy going, with a sharp wit and quick intelligence.<p>

He talked a lot once he'd gotten over the worst of his hangover but that was fine with Rude. He wasn't much of a talker and listening to Reno with his interesting and humorous insights into many things eased most boredom and made the day pass fairly quickly. And as a bonus Reno didn't seem to mind Rude's lack of input into the conversation either. He didn't try to get Rude to talk to him, didn't badger him for any personal information like some might when they were meeting a co-worker for the first time.

It wasn't even as though Reno didn't care either, it just didn't seem to matter to him. Rude'd found that with people from the Midgar slums before. People from the slums weren't interested in the past and that a person wasn't judged on what they'd done only what they were doing now. The present was what really mattered to them and Rude liked the philosophy.

So far they'd already seen to the possible recruit, a Trooper who had seemed interested but wanted time to think about it. Reno hadn't pushed the issue and hadn't tried to sell the position to the man, either; it was the opposite of the way Tseng had told Rude he should recruit. It seemed Reno wasn't a fan of Solider and he wasn't about to sugarcoat the details of what becoming a Solider meant just to get the numbers up.

Rude wasn't sure if this was admirable or not. He didn't share Reno's bias about the Solider program and it was definitely a step up for any Trooper. Of course it was harder work and your life expectancy wasn't great if you couldn't take the strain so Rude could at least understand where Reno was coming from there. Being from the slums Reno had a soft spot for the underlings and the downtrodden that Rude hadn't expected. However he also had an unusual distain for those with money and power, too. Ironic considering Reno was one such person now.

They'd gotten through most of the tedious things of the day already and next on the list was interrogating the Soldiers from the mission Saturday night. Reno's paused outside the interview room with his hand on the knob and turned to Rude.

"Did Tseng let you sit in last time?"

"No. He said I haven't been trained for this yet."

Reno raised both eyebrows in surprise. "There's training for this?"

Rude was becoming fast aware that Reno seemed to have none or very little or the training generally considered necessary to hold the position he had now. Rude had gone through almost two years of specialized instruction with Dallen before he'd even been considered for the position and while he'd only ever seen Reno in training that once, he had assumed that Reno had already been through it all and was being mentored by Tseng. Rude had thought Reno was already a Turk because he'd been further along in his training. Of course Dallen had said when Rude and Reno had first met in the gym that day that he was surprised Reno had done so well in a fight against Rude, considering his lack of training, but Rude had dismissed that at the time as Dallen teasing him.

When Rude had asked Dallen about Reno later Dallen had just told him, "Ah well, that one's a special kind of case. He's been more or less studying under an ex-Turk for the past five years so you might say he's had a lot of field training. He is a recruit though."

_"But he tried to run," Rude pointed out dubiously._

_"He's a reluctant recruit. He'd rather stay clear of Shinra at the moment, but he's good and he'll make an exceptional Turk one day. And so will you. If you keep impressin' me like you have been, you'll both be serving together."_

_"Are you sure he's a recruit?"_

_"Sure as sure can be. Look, Peaches is a right pain in the ass but you'll see."_

Dallen had always been one to vague it up a little if there was a truth to be told that he didn't really want to tell, but Rude had left the conversation with the understanding that Reno had already had his training - albeit a sort of special training - and had in fact been training for longer than Rude. The impression was that when it had came time to join Reno had not relished the idea after all at first but ultimately stepped up and took a position when he'd been needed.

But Rude wasn't so sure, now. Reno didn't seem to have even a basic understanding of proper Turk procedure or have learnt half the rudimentary things necessary to the job. Of course when Reno had joined it had been pretty chaotic and there hadn't been the luxury of easing him into the job like they were now doing with Rude, but still, Rude was beginning to wonder if they hadn't simply just picked some random person up off the streets and put him into a uniform. Sure, he was a talented random person but that hardly seemed to be the point.

Rude realized Reno was still waiting for an answer.

"Yes. There is training. Apparently."

"And Tseng won't let you in till you've learned the basics right?"

"Right."

Reno shrugged. "Well, screw that. I can use you for this one. I sure as shit am not going to put the fear of Ramuh into these bastards on my own. Now listen, you won't have to do anything major. Just stand in the corner and stare at them. Look as menacing as you…" Reno gave Rude's current expression consideration before amending, "Just be yourself. And don't say a thing to them. Though I don't think you'll find that taxing either. C'mon."

Reno led them into the brightly lit room and haphazardly threw a file onto the table where it skidded for a moment before stopping just in front of the lone Solider sitting at the table. Rude recognized him as the man Reno had electrocuted. He took up his designated spot in the corner and folded his arms across his chest while Reno took a seat on the other side of the table, leant the chair back and crossed his ankles up on the table.

Rude watched the Solider for a moment while the Solider kept his eyes on the file in front of him. He didn't seem too scared, but he wasn't precisely calm either. Tseng hadn't been able to get anything out of the man and Rude had to wonder why. Obviously this man didn't have nerves of steel, so what was the problem with getting him to talk?

"You're Owen, right?" Reno asked him conversationally.

Owen didn't respond.

Reno sighed. "Look, there's nothing to be lost by confirming your name for me. You were a Solider: remember, we have extensive files on you. I'm just making sure I bought the right one with me, is all. But I have a pretty good memory for faces and I think we had a job together six months back against that terrorist faction in Junon, am I right?"

Owen seemed to think this over for a while before raising his eyes and nodding. His eyes were a light brown color and they glowed very slightly with mako.

Reno smiled. "Yeah I thought that was you. I'd ask how you've been since then but I kinda get the impression that the answer will be 'not well' considering the massive pile of shit you've landed yourself into. I'm not sure they mentioned this to you when you joined but by the time you make Second Class you're in Solider 'til you die or get so old or injured they don't care about you anymore. And okay, right now I can't think of a single Solider who has met the retirement criteria without actually dying but you can't tell me you didn't know this shit before you signed up."

Owen's jawed clenched and unclenched. "I knew."

"Then what happened, man? You were a Solider with a promising future. Why would ya wanta throw it all away by runnin'? You had to know we'd come after you. And you know what to expect from the Turks, you've been right up close and personal to see me work. Didn't that scare you none?"

"Why should I be scared of you?" Owen asked in a moment of defiance. It didn't seem to faze Reno though, he just kept on grinning.

"'Cause I'm a scary guy, Owen. You know that. You remember in Junon when that terrorist shot you when we'd run outta bullets? You remember how I ran in and stuck him with my knife before he could finish the job. Actually, hang on." Reno pulled up one of the hems of his pants leg and pulled a rather long knife from a sheath he kept concealed in his boot. He dropped it with a clatter onto the table in front of him. "I still got that knife, too. It's a good knife, went right into him like butter, straight into his heart. You gotta kill 'em quick in those kinds of situations. It's a pity really 'cause I generally find that it's the traitorous ones that scream the loudest. I always hate missing out on that when I'm not able to take my time with them."

Even Rude knew how dangerous it was to bring a weapon in here. Especially considering their prisoner was a Solider and probably quite a bit stronger than Reno was. But the Solider didn't go for it. Rude wasn't surprised about that. If this Solider had seen Reno in action before he probably knew better. Rude had seen how quick he was first hand too and that was before the mako infusion. But the Soldier's eyes did flick down to the blade momentarily. It was probably out of fear rather than desire to grab it, though.

"You think I owe you something for saving my life?" The Solider asked. "Well it was a Turk that condemned me to this life too. So I think that makes me and the Turks even."

So Reno had already gotten out of him that he hated his Soldier life. It wasn't much but it was something. They now knew he was dissatisfied with Shinra and it might be something to use. Reno however pretended not to notice that the small bit of information mattered.

"I'm not saying you owe me for saving you, Owen, not at all. I'm saying that you might possibly owe me the scream of a Shinra traitor but we can get around to settling that particular debt later seeing as you're now in a prime position to help me out with that."

The unmistakable threat wasn't lost on Owen. He scowled. "I don't understand you Reno, you aren't a saluting the marquee loyalist either. What do you care?"

Reno shrugged. "I don't care that you're a traitor, Owen. Not me personally. I'm just here for the fun of it. And really, I think that should scare you more than if I _was_ a loyalist. Cause a loyalist company man isn't likely to tie you down to this table and cut you for the pure enjoyment of it. People with loyalties tend to have morals and ethics and all those other dirty words."

"You won't make me talk."

"Good," Reno grinned. "Cause if you did I wouldn't have an excuse to bleed you later. But in all fairness I have to give you a chance first. So you wanna tell me, Owen, who in the world has you more scared of them than you are of me right now? 'Cause call me conceited but I'm a pretty sure you're thinking right now about all the horrible things I might do to you if this conversation doesn't go in the right direction and that's gotta be some trouser browning stuff right there. So tell me, who's the even scarier maniac?"

Owen's eyes widened a little at the question, making Rude wonder whether this kid had ever won even a single hand of poker in his life.

Reno continued, "Oh, don't give me that look. You already told me you hate your job and that there is enough reason to want to leave. And hey, couldn't really blame you for that. But even after you told me that and I threatened you, you told me that you wouldn't talk. And that makes me think you're covering for someone. And that someone must be pretty scary. So okay, I won't make you tell me the name of the guy just yet. All I really want to know is why he's even in the equation here. What's he got to do with any of this? And if you tell me, even just one little hint, I'll let you get some sleep tonight, in a proper bed, with the lights off. I may even get them to feed you."

"It's not a man, it's a woman. I ran away to be with her."

Reno yawned. "You're lying."

"I'm not. I didn't want to tell you because I'm protecting her, I'm not scared of her. I love her."

"Look, if you want to sell that story you have to make it like I very reluctantly dragged it out of you. You can't just blurt it out, makes it sound all false. And besides, if you're running away for love why were you running with one of your mates?"

"He was helping me."

"At the risk of being caught and tortured and shot?" Reno said skeptically. "Pull the other one."

"We're friends, of course he'd help me."

"Uh huh. You know of course that Soldiers are allowed to have relationships right? It's not like you had to run away."

Owen paused for a moment. "She didn't like me being a Solider. She hated the idea that I was killing people."

Reno watched him for a little while with his head on the side. "Now that had a little bit of truth in it. But I don't think it's this mystery woman who doesn't like that you have to kill people for a living. I think it's you. Now, I'm only gonna give you one more chance at this and if you lie about this girl one more time you're going to lose another night of sleep. But I'm not totally without a heart, you will get fed. Later when I have a moment spare for you I'll come back in here and feed you your ear."

For the first time during the interview, Reno wasn't smiling and that made the man more nervous. His eyes flicked to the knife again and he swallowed.

"C'mon, doesn't have to be much." Reno prodded, "You aren't stupid Owen, I remember that about you. As much as you hate your job, you had to be so sure that you were gonna be able to get away from here, you had to be sure that you were gonna be protected, right? And I'm also sure that if we had turned up ten minutes later you and your buddy would have been gone because it was the middle of the night and the pair of you were both wide awake and waiting for somebody. Protection against Shinra means big money, right? So why was this big money so interested in you? What did you promise them in return?"

Owen seemed to be thinking about it. But eventually he replied. "Me. I promised them me. The both of us."

Reno didn't seem entirely convinced. "Not to shit all over your moment Owen, but while I know you aren't bad at what you do, you're better than average sure, but there's one or two Third Class Soldiers that can keep up with you and we wouldn't chase them like we did you. So why you? Why did they approach you?"

"Because taking a Third Class isn't much better than taking a wash out rookie. They'd never get a First Class, a Second Class is the next best alternative."

Reno could have pressed him at this point. To Rude it didn't seem like much information. But Reno, true to his word got up, collected his knife and the file and gave Owen another, warmer smile this time.

"It's not much, but it'll do. Get some sleep, Owen, you look like crap."

Reno gestured for Rude to follow him and they exited the room. After a little while walking in silence Rude had to ask. "How does that help? You sounded like you had most of it already figured out."

Reno grinned at him. "Are you kidding me? I was talking out my ass for most of that. Sure I had an inkling, but I didn't know if it was true until I got him to agree to that small little part of it. And besides, what he did tell me was a lot bigger than I think he realizes. There's a good reason they chose him. By the time a Soldier gets to Second Class he's pretty committed. The fact that they needed a Second Class is very important because it's during this time that they start prepping them for First Class, especially with those that show promise like Owen did. He might have hated his job but I lied before when I told him that a Third Class could have bested him. He's a talented Soldier, they would have been prepping him for a while now."

"Prepping him for what?"

"Well that is what we call classified. I don't have the authority to tell you that yet. But I'll ask Rufus about that this afternoon when we report to him." Reno started walking again.

"All that stuff about cutting him up…"

"Yeah, what a shitty threat to get a scared man to talk huh? But I can't deny the results. Sickening huh?"

"So you wouldn't have…"

"Oh I would have. You can't threaten them and not go ahead with it. But I wouldn't have enjoyed it, that's just for show. It's a lot more of a threat if it sounds like you'd rather they didn't talk, like you'd love nothing more than an excuse to cut into them, but I thought for a moment he was gonna test me on that one. Glad he didn't, 'cause the idea doesn't appeal to me."

Reno was either lying or he was a very good actor. Rude didn't especially feel like betting either way at this point because he wasn't entirely sure how much he cared. He personally didn't find the idea of torture that appealing either but he could see why some might find it necessary. Dallen, for instance, had told him once that a little pain for someone might mean a lot of lives were saved as a result. Rude wasn't entirely sure if hundreds of lives hung in the balance simply because two Soldiers decided to sell themselves to the highest bidder but he kept his mouth shut and didn't voice his reservations to Reno. Prudence dictated that he keep his thoughts to himself and find out the whole story before passing judgment on the matter.

Reno didn't seem to notice. "Let's go have a chat with that old friend of mine before it gets too late. We can get something to eat on the way."

* * *

><p>Rude had only just moved to Midgar and therefore didn't have a car. He wasn't sure if he'd bother getting one either because Midgar public transport was a lot better than in Junon and Midgar drivers were insane. Reno was a very good example of this. He had to admit, all weekend he'd been spoilt, being driven around in Tseng's beautiful black sports car with all the trimmings. But Reno's car? Rude supposed it was cool in an old retro kind of way and it was a convertible but there was no getting around the fact that it was a piece of shit. And whoever thought that a shade of vomit green was a good color for a car should be shot.<p>

A lot.

The engine made funny noises, the brake pedal - when Reno bothered to use it- made only a token gesture toward actual braking, and the entire frame was only held together by rust. Reno seemed to like it though, apparently. It was the first car he'd ever bought and was also incidentally his very first apartment too. Rude could tell from the smell. How a well-paid Turk ended up with a car like this was a mystery for Rude.

Furthermore it seemed as though Reno had learnt to drive from a blind person. He weaved in and out of traffic, oblivious to the screeching around him and car honks except to raise the occasional middle finger at the louder than usual objections flung his way as he traveled through the Midgar streets. But they got to where they were going intact enough. Reno hopped out of his car with a bounce while Rude was just happy to find his legs had decided to support him after that ordeal.

"You should get a car," Reno told him companionably as they set off across the street toward a bar on the corner. "The trains are good, but they run late a lot."

"I don't have a Midgar license."

Reno laughed. "Hey, who does?"

"You don't have a license?" Rude asked. Though it really shouldn't have surprised him to learn this.

"Nah, neither does Tseng. Apparently they don't like giving Midgar papers to Wutaian citizens. But he still drives around anyway."

"Tseng is from Wutai?"

"Well I suppose he's technically half Wutaian, but he was born there, yeah. And because of the war nobody that was born in Wutai can get Midgar citizenry and therefore can't get a driver's license. Can't even buy his own place, has to rent. It's a bitch of a technicality, but it never seems to bother Tseng much."

Rude protested, "But he's the Leader of the Turks, surely Shinra would-"

"Nah nah, stop right there. When I say it doesn't bother Tseng much I mean he'd never let on if it really bothered him or not. I doubt Shinra even realizes what's going on and Tseng's too proud to say anything. I even think there's a small part of him that likes keeping that little part of his heritage. I get it. I even offered to threaten the mayor for him but he told me in no uncertain terms that if I act on his behalf without his permission for any reason he'd cut my tongue out with a rusty butter knife and throw it into Reactor Two." Reno shrugged. "There are certain subjects that Tseng gets real touchy about and not even I will cross him on those. Well, not unless I'm really pissed at him. Actually, it's probably in your best interests that you never let on I even told you, but it's still a good idea to give you a heads up before you blunder into the subject unwittingly."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Reno said with a grin. Then added without the grin, "Like, ever. Really, I mean it."

They entered the bar and Reno led them back towards a small room that seemed kept only for private guests. A lone man was sitting at the only table there with a plate of half finished food in front of him and a similarly finished beer. He looked up when Reno entered, stood up and the two men clasped hands in a friendly handshake before sitting down at the table. There were only two chairs so Rude stood a little ways behind Reno while Reno got comfortable and lit up a smoke. The man they were meeting was on the large side with a head of thick almost entirely gray hair. He looked like he'd once been a powerful man but now at around the age of sixty his muscles seemed to be making room for a little padding. He lit up his own cigar and gave Reno a grin. Rude wasn't entirely sure it was a friendly one though.

"Jeez, Rankin you get bigger every time I see you. Is it twins?" He asked gesturing to the man's slightly plumper than usual belly.

"Still the same obnoxious twat, I see. Ya know, I could say the same of you. What the hell they been feeding you to gain so much weight in the month since I saw you last?"

Rude was surprised. He didn't really remember all that clearly what Reno had looked like in their first encounter but if this was Reno with a little weight on him, he must have been nothing but a skeleton with skin on before he joined Shinra.

Reno shrugged and ashed his smoke into a near empty glass on the table. "It's Shinra, Rankin, they've been feeding me nothing but virgins and champagne."

"Hah! I doubt me even Shinra is powerful enough to find a virgin in Midgar."

Reno grinned. "Tseng's got me on a diet. You know the sort: three meals a day, all heavy, followed by a couple of hours a day in the gym. You wait, I'll be right buff in a couple of months."

"Yeah sure, and I'm gonna marry Miss Midgar and live in a house with a white picket fence in the country."

"Congratulations are in order, then?"

"Smart ass. So, I don't exactly remember asking you to bring a date, who's the frown the in suit?" Rankin asked gesturing behind Reno.

Reno glanced at Rude before focusing back onto Rankin. "New Turk. Dallen's student, actually. Rude meet Rankin, I suppose you could say he's your Grand Teacher."

Rude's eyes widened a little at that. He thought he'd recognized the name, but it hadn't clicked until now. Rankin, being the first Turk to ever retire in the history of Shinra, was a legend. After all, it was always nice to know that it was possible to live to see retirement as a Turk and here was the proof sitting in front of him.

Rankin was eyeing him with a little less awe, though. "This is Dallen's student? Looks a little stiff to me. Always thought Dallen would go for someone… well, someone more like you." Rankin admitted. He watched Rude for a few more moments. "Does it talk?"

"When the mood takes him," Reno replied. "It ain't real often but he's definitely growing on me. Beats listening to Tseng harp on about me all the time."

Rankin gave Reno a knowing smirk. "He harps on ya 'cause you're a stubborn little asshole with the survival instincts of a doorknob. I don't tell me that every time he'd gone off on you about something it hasn't been more than valid."

"I knew you'd take his side."

"Of course I would, you daft idiot. You forget I know you both and I'd take Tseng's side over yours any day of the week. I wasn't born yesterday, Reno."

"Yeah I know. You're too fucking old for me to mistake that little fact."

Rankin grinned, "You want to sit here and discuss your marital issues with Tseng all day or you want this info?"

"I'll take the info if you don't mind. Rude," Reno gestured over his shoulder, "Write this down."

Rude panicked a little in that moment. It wasn't like he carried around a notebook. He didn't realize he'd need one. Rankin stopped him from patting down his pockets a moment later.

"Relax boy, Reno is just playing with you. The moment an old messenger of mine can't remember a simple tip is the moment he stops breathing."

Rude glared at the back of Reno's head.

"That group in Five ain't a lot to worry about kid," Rankin told Reno. "For all the infamy it turns out there's barely five guys and four brain cells between them."

Reno looked surprised. "They have one hell of a PR company then. Even Rufus heard about this group. We all thought they were planning a coup or something." Reno sat back in his chair. "Only five guys? Really?"

"They ain't above talking themselves up apparently. All bark and no bite. That reactor break in last week weren't them, by the way."

Reno frowned. "I know I should be shocked you even know about that but I'm not. Who was it then, cause that's why Rufus started to get so nervous about these guys in the first place. If it wasn't them who was it then?"

Rankin grinned. "It were us."

Reno rolled his eyes. "Great. That's not exactly something I care to report. Can I ask why you were breaking into Reactor One?"

"No. But if it makes you feel any better there was no harm done and we didn't steal anything. Don't worry, we won't be trying anything like that again soon."

"Like I really care. You aren't a Terrorist, Rankin, you aren't a threat to us in the same way as they are, but I'm more than a little concerned someone paid you money to break into a reactor."

Rankin shrugged. "Stiff shit. You can tell Rufus and Tseng those Terrorists are no more anyway. Even if they were all piss and wind we still had to do something about them 'cause their reputation alone is bad for business. But we cleaned 'em out for you free of charge. Well, I say free of charge..."

"Yeah, I know, a favor is a favor, right? Speaking of which, I was wondering if you'd heard anything about a group of people that might be interested in acquiring Shinra personnel for money."

"You're gonna have to give me a little more to go on than that, boy."

Reno seemed to debate for a moment or two on how much to tell the other man. Ultimately, he decided to share. "I know someone in Midgar at the moment might be interested in a few of our Soldiers. Heard anything about it?"

"You had Soldiers going missing, Reno? Well don't that just sound like Yule to those of us that have to deal with the tough bastards. My heart bleeds for you."

"I'll take that as a 'no' then," Reno said sourly.

"You can take that as a 'not yet'. I'll see what I can do for you."

* * *

><p>It was almost five in the afternoon before they made it back to the Shinra Building and Reno wasted no time in heading up to Rufus' office to make his report. Rude was just happy to be out of Reno's car and have his feet on solid ground again.<p>

This was the only the second time Rude had been to Rufus's office, but it was the second time in four days. At first Rude had been surprised to find how involved the Vice-President was with the Turks; since Rufus was in such a high position Rude had initially thought that his first meeting with him would be the one and only. But Reno and Tseng seemed to keep Rufus updated on various goings on so that he was always in the loop. Rude found the active, hands on management strange. He supposed it might have something to do with there not being a lot of Turks now and the Leader didn't have a lot of time left over for administration work these days. He would put that on the list to ask Tseng later.

Reno knocked on the office door but didn't wait for an invitation to enter. He waltzed into the room, Rude trailing behind him, and took a seat in one of the vacant visitor's chairs. They patiently waited for Rufus to get off the phone. Rufus didn't seem a man to be rushed, but he glared at Reno all the same for the rest of his conversation.

"Wasn't my secretary out there?" Rufus asked when he hung up.

"She was, but I gotta tell you, Rufus, she ain't the brightest spark. I'm not sure she's got it into her head yet to check to see if you have meetings with people before they just stroll into your office."

This was obviously an old tease between the two and just as obviously one that Reno tended to win. Rufus didn't say anything back and just scowled even more deeply. Rude didn't have to think hard to figure out what the joke might be. Reno had momentarily chatted to the girl before walking in. She was really attractive and everything but Reno had been right, she didn't seem to be the brightest or most efficient person in the world.

"So, have you met our latest lamb?" Reno asked Rufus after enjoying a few moments grinning at his boss's displeasure.

"Yes I have." To Rude he said, "Rude, you don't need to stand, please take a seat." Then back at Reno he added, "He hasn't once insulted me or pulled a gun on me so I already like him a lot better than I do you."

Reno smirked. "That wouldn't be difficult considering you don't actually like me at all. But if we're done bonding, I'd like to get through the meeting and get out of here if I could. It might be novel to leave the building before the sun goes down for a change."

"We'll see about that," Rufus replied noncommittally. "Mondays are always busier and I find it hard to believe you completed everything you were supposed to."

Rude knew what Rufus meant. Tseng had told him yesterday that the Monday shift was the busiest of the week and he'd likely be staying back later than usual. Tseng said he didn't usually get out until after seven at night and Reno was sometimes around until ten. It depended on the workload, of course, and there were certain things that each person was a little more suited for than the other. Apparently Reno had a day filled with well-suited Reno activities. Rude had to concede that; most of what they had done today could have taken a lot longer with another person. Rude had been pretty impressed, actually.

"Before we get started," Reno began, "I need to talk to you about some pretty confidential stuff and Rude doesn't officially have clearance."

Rufus sighed. "That's alright, I think Rude here deserves an early mark. He's probably had a very trying day spending all that time with you."

"Oooo funny. But seriously, can't he stay and listen? He's gonna be a full fledged Turk soon enough, it's a foregone conclusion isn't it?"

Rufus opened his mouth to reply but apparently thought his answer over for a moment. "Fine, whatever. Rude, you don't foresee getting cold feet in the near future about becoming a Turk?"

"No, Sir."

"Okay, that's good enough for me. I take it this has something to do with the interrogation this morning?"

"Got it in one go," Reno told him. He then went on to fill Rufus in on everything he'd learnt. He then added this own thoughts by saying that, "It seems pretty obvious why they wanted Owen. Well not him specifically, but a Second Class well along in his training. First's are hard to get a hold of and we don't have a lot of them, anyway. Owen and the guy with him, Rubin, are both skilled Soldiers. I checked, they were being prepped for future Jenova enhancements. It's pretty obvious to me that that's the reason why whoever was so interested in getting their hands on the pair of them. Owen is obviously afraid of someone and that means he was probably being paid or threatened to go to them."

Rufus shook his head in wonderment. "How do you come to these conclusions? Nothing you tell me compels me to believe that what you're saying is true, you're merely guessing."

"Mostly," Reno conceded. "But it's the only thing I can think of that fits. Bet you a hundred gil I'm right."

Rufus frowned. "No."

Reno smirked.

"I'm not convinced they wanted him just because he was on his way to getting the Jenova enhancements. There are other things Soldier Second Classes are good for." Rufus informed him.

"Yeah, they're tough." Reno answered.

"Yes, they are. They're the next best thing to Soldier elite. Maybe they just wanted to hire some muscle?"

"They'd still need to be a very rich 'they'," Reno said. "And that theory doesn't sit well with me for a few reasons. Mainly because if they get caught with Shinra property they're in deep shit. So what good is having muscle if you never get a chance to properly use it in public without getting found out? Nah, nah, there's something else going on here, I'd bet you anything."

"Is this another one of your gut feelings?" Rufus asked with a weary sigh.

"It is. Don't look at me like that. I'm more right than not."

"That's not exactly the issue. But you're never very conveniently right. And you're only ever right about the worst case scenarios too, have you noticed that?"

Reno fidgeted a little in his chair. "I can't help it. It's not like I actually make the problems or even make them worse most of the time."

"Not as many since you joined Shinra, I suppose. But it's a close thing as to whether you were more trouble for us before or after you became a Turk."

"Bite me, Rufus."

"Speaking of things Rebel, did Rankin get back to you about those terrorists?"

"All bark, Rankin tells me. He's already taken care of it for us."

Rufus sighed, "Well I suppose I owe him some money, then."

"Yeah, he went above and beyond after all. And I have him looking into anyone who might be interested in a couple of Second Class Soldiers, too."

Rufus didn't look pleased. "What did you tell him?"

"Not much," Reno shrugged. "Just enough."

"Isn't information gathering supposed to be your specialty?" Rufus asked him. "I would prefer it if we weren't relying on a Rebel Group that doesn't like us much, quite so often. Rankin might have been one of us a very long time ago, but I don't like funding him now that he works with terrorists."

"He works with and against all the factions in Midgar." Reno reminded him. "He's not going to turn around and give whatever info I give him to our enemy because it's bad for business if nothing else. Telling terrorists that our Soldiers are skipping out on us will just create anarchy and that's the opposite of what he's trying to achieve."

Rufus still didn't look happy.

"Look, Rufus, I would get out there and find all this shit out myself but I just don't have the time."

"I could always ask Tseng to come in tomorrow and take over your duties so you can spend the day on Intel." Rufus said thoughtfully.

"No." Reno responded with a surprising amount of force. "This is the first time in three months when he's had more than one day off at a time. Leave him the fuck alone."

Rufus didn't look pleased being told what to do but he didn't argue with him. "Fine. Let Rankin look into this for you, I'll see he gets paid, but once Rude here is ready to take up some of the slack I want you only going for outside help when it is absolutely necessary. I want us to be self sufficient in these kinds of matters."

"Alright, shouldn't be a problem. Just remember you used to have five Turks doing all this stuff, not two or even three."

"Yes, I remember. I also happen to remember who started the whole mess that left us with only two, as well."

"You can't blame that on me," Reno told him.

"Oh yes I can. You killed off three of them yourself."

At that Rude went quite still and barely even breathed. Considering he hadn't been saying anything or doing anything prior to this, the other two failed to register the reaction.

Reno huffed a little at Rufus's accusation. "Only two, technically. And you'd be dead now if I hadn't. You could sound a little more appreciative."

Rufus actually smiled. "If I don't, I apologize. But the fact of the matter is that there aren't five Turks anymore so you'll just have to make do."

Reno sighed, "Don't we always? Well, that's about it for the Monday report."

"Oh? Did you get everything done?"

"I did. The interrogation was short, Rankin was receptive and my other assignments can't go any further yet. I'm as done as done can be for the day."

"I'm impressed. It isn't like you to be so efficient. Okay, fine, go home and get some rest. I'll see you and Tseng on Thursday for the next update."

Reno got up from his chair with a grin, but Rude didn't feel half as happy. Sure, it was nice to be done for the day, but Rufus' comments had gotten to him. Reno had killed Turks? That idea didn't sit well with him. As he followed the Turk back toward the elevators, Rude eyed Reno's belt and the weapon hanging off it.

When they got to the elevator bank, Reno turned his smile back on Rude. "You had a good first Monday, it was pretty slow 'cause we didn't have much on the weekend that Tseng and you couldn't handle. I suppose I have you to thank for that."

Rude didn't respond but Reno didn't seem to notice that anything was wrong and continued, "It wont be always only two of us on a day like this, today was kinda special because Tseng hasn't had a day off in forever - but I'm told we're gonna get a new roster soon." Reno paused for a wistful moment, "You have no idea how much the idea of a new roster fills me with joy." Then he seemed to realize what he was saying and added. "I can't believe I'm getting all doe-eyed over rostering issues. Oh how the mighty have fallen and gone off and gotten grown up jobs."

The elevator came and the pair stepped into it in order to go back to their office to collect their belongings before heading home.

"Our current roster is horrible by the way, and until you learn the ropes we'll probably have to continue on that one for a little while yet. Right now I'm starting an eight-day streak, then I get one day off, back on for three and then two off 'cause that'll be Tseng's weekend to work again. Well that's how it's supposed to work in theory. In practice that one day off doesn't usually happen and we get called out just about every weekend we're supposed to have off. Before last weekend I'd been on for two and a half weeks straight, sometimes nights too. I never knew the Turks did so much and it almost makes me feel sorry for how many times I've gotten them into shit in the past. Well almost." Reno added with a grin.

If Rude had thought before that it was nice Reno wasn't interested in the past, he was deeply regretting it now. He found himself really wanting to know what Reno had been doing before he joined, how he joined and why Rufus had said he was responsible for the deaths of three Turks.

* * *

><p><em>Notes: And so ends Rude's first day with Reno. Sorry about the lack of action but it's important for them to bond. Well as much bonding as they can do when Rude still isn't sure about how much of a psycho Reno really is. I like that Reno worries him a little because it will make for some interesting bumps along the road. Well hope you had fun, please <em>_**review**__. This was a double sized chapter so please show me the love _

_Thanks_

_AF_


	5. Meeting New People

**Nothing To Say**

**Chapter 5**

**Meeting New People**

The next day was pretty uneventful for Rude as far as work was concerned. They still had a fair amount of work to get through, but most of it was general housekeeping and it was pretty boring stuff. Accounts, planning and departmental requests mainly.

Reno tried to show Rude how to deal with the first but admitted after not too long that he really didn't understand it much himself. Tseng took care of most of it, but Reno still had to account for any funds he'd used for the week. And it wasn't like much of the things the Turks spent their money on came with receipts so Reno explained to Rude that it was half accounting and half pure blatant bullshitting. He totaled up what he vaguely recalled using for the week and left the rest of the paperwork for Tseng to go through the next day.

Planning covered a lot of different things and mainly had to do with various jobs and assignments they had upcoming. Reno was good at this part. He seemed to be a fairly good strategist and it seemed Tseng thought so too because Rude noticed that Tseng treated this part of the job the same way Reno treated the accounts. Which was to do the bare minimum and then leave it on his fellow Turk's desk to fix up and complete.

"It's not that Tseng can't do it, he's good with plans and stuff but he's got a bigger workload than me. So he figures that if he does find something I can do almost as well as he does he might as well get me to do it while he handles something I can't do. Which admittedly is a lot of stuff."

Rude supposed it made sense, in a way. But he was still pretty surprised that such a cautious man like Tseng allowed Reno to plan and strategize almost everything from meetings with people to raiding suspicious buildings in the slums. But as Tseng had commented the other day,

_"Reno is a good problem solver in many ways, the trick is to get him to see the problem from the outside first and give him a chance to plan and prepare. He is intelligent enough to do this kind of thing on the run, but when making decisions sometimes in the heat of battle he tends to lose patience with the situation and becomes reckless if he doesn't have a pre-thought plan to follow. Until he learns to use his brain and think on his feet like I know he has the ability to do, planning is essential to any operation we undertake."_

Rude tried to follow Reno with this for a little while but he had to admit eventually that this sort of stuff wasn't his strong point. Tseng had been right, Reno was a good problem solver and knew exactly how to best utilize his resources in a way that Rude just couldn't keep up with. Rude knew he was more a sort of logic minded person and Reno's plans didn't seem to rely on logic very much.

"Don't worry, you'll get it. I never got the impression that Dallen was much of a planner so you might not have had the best teacher for this sort of stuff, but Tseng knows how to train you for this. He used to give me situational puzzles to work out like with resources and manpower and stuff and it helps. Not to sound all in love with myself or whatever but I was pretty okay at this sort of shit to begin with, but Tseng's way honed it a bit more. You'll see, soon it'll be second nature."

Rude wasn't sure about that but he appreciated the optimism all the same.

The longer he worked with Reno, the more Rude got to like him, despite his misgivings about yesterday and what Rufus had said. He still had a lot of questions to ask, but he hung on to the idea that if Reno had anything to do with Dallen, Tseng would not have stood for Reno becoming a Turk. Tseng seemed to be a dedicated company man, but Rude knew the old partners had been close. He knew true loyalty and friendship when he saw it and he also knew that orders given by the company would not have stopped Tseng from ending Reno if he had any blame in what had happened at all.

So until Rude got proper answers he was prepared to work with Reno, learn from him as much as was possible and save up his questions for later. He supposed he could have asked Reno outright, but he felt that if he was wrong, it could have bad consequences for the future. All he really needed to do now was fit in. As Dallen had told him repeatedly in the past, "_The bond you share with the man that watches your back has to be a good and strong one. You have to trust one another implicitly. Otherwise you'll find no one at your back except a man holding a knife."_

After lunch it was time to deal with the departmental requests. Reno sorted these into several different piles. The first pile was urgent, the second was urgentish but were ones Tseng would have to deal with himself, the third pile was not so urgent and the forth pile was, "Completely and utterly wasting our fucking time," as Reno put it.

"This one for instance," Reno explained, "is a request from Accounting asking us to track down the source of several threatening letters. Accounting does a lot of stuff from watching our budgets to handling our pay every month, for everyone in the entirety of Shinra. No doubt they get a lot of threatening letters, some of which can be very graphic. At least the one I sent to them last week was. Half the company sends them death threats. Tracking down shit like that is a waste of our very precious time. For now we do the urgent 'Reno' pile. The urgent 'Tseng' pile can wait till tomorrow."

"Why are there some for you and some for Tseng?"

Reno picked up his jacket and threw it on motioning for Rude to follow him out the door. They continued their conversation on the way to the elevator bank.

"Two reasons. Firstly, we can get personally requested to handle certain jobs. The other reason is that some departmental requests automatically get assigned to Tseng because they are for important people or important departments. Presidential requests, Science Department requests, requests from Heidigar or Soldier, that sort of stuff. Anything else goes to me. I'll handle anything with my name on it first and then me and Tseng both will get through anything else when we can."

"So where are we going?"

Reno winced just a little, "Weapons Development. Scarlet asked for me personally."

"Scarlet?"

Reno gave Rude a funny look. "You were training here for two years, how could you not know who Scarlet is? She's the head of the Weapons Research and Development Department and a right royal pain in my ass. I'd fob her off onto Tseng but like I said, she requested me for the assignment so I have to take it if I think she has a real job to offer us."

"She might not?"

Reno stopped by the elevator and stabbed the down button with his forefinger. "Sometimes she does and sometimes she just likes to get me down there to annoy the fuck out of me. She thinks it's a fun teasing sort of game to play but it only makes me wanta go have a shower after I leave."

Rude looked at him disbelievingly.

"You'll see," Reno told him confidently.

* * *

><p>When they reached the right floor, Rude was taken completely back by what he was confronted with. More than half of the entire floor was an open area with a taller than usual ceiling filled with workbenches and half constructed weapons and what looked to be doomsday devices of some description. It was also the most heavily guarded floor in the entire building. There were guards outside the elevator and stairwell checking any personnel that wandered onto the floor. There were metal detectors and guard dogs and even an X-ray scanner for both people and their belongings.<p>

Being Turks and therefore armed, both he and Reno set off all sorts of alarms but neither of them were stopped. The guards just nodded the pair through without any interest in disarming them at all.

Rude followed Reno to an office area off to the side of the floor and an office in particular enclosed by glass on all sides. There were drapes for the occupant's privacy but they were open at the moment.

Reno, apparently just to be annoying, knocked his fist on the glass as he walked around to the door. He lounged in the opening, smirking.

The woman inside was a pretty blond wearing a striking red outfit. She might have even been beautiful if it weren't for a little too much make-up and the cruel smile she favored Reno with when she put down the phone and gave him her full attention.

"Reno the fearless Turk, that charming smile of yours sure does make a girl's heart flutter."

Reno's smile only got wider. "Scarlet the repellent harlot, it was either force a smile or vomit onto the floor. I'd thought I'd go for the smile, I don't want to be rude after all. That's his job." Reno said jerking a thumb over his shoulder where Rude was standing behind him.

Rude's eyes widened just a tad. This was Scarlet? She looked a little young to be head of her own department. And wait, had Reno just called her a-

Scarlet craned her neck a little to look past Reno at Rude who shifted a little uncomfortably under her appraising stare.

"New meat?" Scarlet asked.

"Yes and no. This is Rude, newest member of the Turks. But no, you can't have him."

"What?" Scarlet asked with a mischievous smirk, "already put dibs on him, Reno?"

"Hilarious." Reno responded, not in the least amused. "No, I just want him to get through his first week without catching some unsightly disease."

If Scarlet was at all annoyed by the comment, she made a valiant effort not to show it. "Is Rude really his name?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Poor thing. And here you are, suffering under this scoundrel's tutelage as well." Scarlet gazed at Rude past Reno and gave him a seductive smile. "Don't believe a word he tells you about me, Rude. He gets jealous of the men I actually do find an interest in."

Even if Rude was inclined to respond to that, he honestly didn't know how to.

Reno made a show of laughing. "Funny Scarlet, that you might mistake pity for jealousy. You're just upset that you found someone that can think with their brain instead of their dick for a change. Not that it would matter 'cause it's not like my dick wants anything to do with you, either. There are veteran whores I know in the slums that are probably a tighter fit than you. Not to mention cleaner."

Scarlet tried to keep smiling but she was losing the battle. "I'm sure there are pencil sharpeners that would seem a loose fit for you, dear Reno."

"Funny, your secretary didn't seem to have a problem with my size when she was screaming out my name last weekend in ecstatic glee."

"As if you would ever sleep with her. She's a little on the homely side, isn't she? Or is that simply the best you could do?"

"I found her discourse in weapons engineering so insightful and intelligent that I just had to have her. Abbey's a bright girl and you know how much glasses and braids just turn me on."

Scarlet wore a look that Rude could only describe as unbelieving. The expression and their banter made him think that sometime in the past Scarlet must have tried to seduce Reno and been thoroughly knocked back. And here Reno had instead gone for someone Scarlet deemed lesser. She didn't seem to be able to understand.

Rude didn't quite understand how two people could talk this way to each other or so openly taunt each other about sex. It wasn't something he really had to deal with as a Trooper.

"Asshole."

"You know, if you aren't nice to me your request for our help will go back onto the bottom of the pile."

"Not my request, you can go talk to Margaret about that one. So as for being nice to you, well, I'd rather eat glass."

"I don't believe you. I think you should prove it."

"Get out of my office, please."

"It would be my absolute pleasure." Reno bowed with mock politeness.

"Degenerate," Scarlet muttered just loud enough.

"Skank," Reno replied in the same tone.

When they were clear of the office and marching with purpose across the floor toward the other end of the large workspace Rude asked quietly, "You do get along with some people here, don't you?"

Reno grinned at him, "Sure do. You're actually about to meet one of them."

Reno gestured toward a woman who was bent over a waist high work bench reading very intently from a clip board lying on the bench in front of her. She was chewing a pen in obvious deep concentration. And even though she was wearing blue coveralls, and her long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail so not to get in the way while she worked, Rude couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was. Everything, even the deep frown lines of concentration on her face seemed to highlight this.

Reno picked up his pace to circle around the oblivious woman and crept up on her. He threw his arms around her making her squeal a little in surprise as he lifted her off the ground. Her pen dropped from her fingers as she grabbed for the arms around her waist.

Reno set her down with a genuine grin this time while she made a show of smacking his chest for obviously scaring her. She was smiling, though, and Rude felt a surprising pang of resentment toward his co-worker in that moment. The two were obviously close.

"Gods, Reno, you almost gave me heart failure!"

"Bah, that's what all the pretty girls say to me."

Rude stooped down and picked up the dropped pen, offering it toward the woman without comment.

Maggie looked up at him a little uncertainly. Rude noted she had very deep dark blue eyes, like the night sky.

"Uh thanks."

Reno watched the exchange with a curious expression for a moment before breaking the silence. "Maggie, this is Rude. He's our newest Turk."

"Rude? For real?"

Rude nodded. He didn't take offence; he was pretty used to that reaction by now.

She gave him a slow smile. "I sure hope that's not a descriptive name."

"Scarlet seems to want to call him 'new meat' if you'd prefer that name."

Maggie winced a little at that. "Wow, that was fast. She sure doesn't waste any time."

"Well she is a department head I suppose. Things to see, people to do, busy, busy, busy. Speaking of busy…"

Maggie gave Reno such a warm smile that it seemed to light up her eyes too. "I only put that request in yesterday. Can it be that you've made my little job a priority? I'm touched."

Reno smiled right back. "You know how to work the system, Mags, I'll give you that. Personally requesting a certain Turk, and you know that requesting me and being from Weapons Development means I have to see to this first. I wouldn't get too mushy, I thought the request came from Scarlet. I almost dropped it to the bottom of the pile just because of that little fact."

"Well I'm glad you didn't because I think we might have a big problem," Maggie told him a shade more seriously. "I think we've had a break-in."

For a moment Reno didn't seem to understand what she was saying. "You what?"

"I know, I know, who could possibly break in here without setting off ten kinds of alarms, right? But that's just it, we have a bunch of plans and a few weapons that have gone missing."

Reno frowned. "That's a pretty big deal. What sorts of plans and weapons?"

"Well everything taken was from Soldier weapons research and development, which is confusing enough."

"Yeah, why break into the candy store only to steal apples." Reno agreed. "There is shit in here that could turn the Shinra Building, and most of Midgar for that matter, into a smoking pile of rubble - so why the fuck would someone just steal swords and personal armor?"

"My thoughts exactly. It's not even a size issue, we have some rather compact weaponry here that's easier to smuggle out than some of the blades that were taken. I don't really understand the thieves' logic."

"I don't suppose you'd like to make things easier and tell us one of your co-workers was probably involved, would you?" Reno asked hopefully after a moment of thought.

"I doubt it. We get checked coming in and out of work just like any visitor does. There's no way someone could just walk out with that stuff under his jacket unless security lets them."

"Awesome, I think that just made my headache worse." Reno rubbed his head to reinforce that fact. "Okay, Maggie, I'll look into it and see what I can shake loose. Have you mentioned this to anyone else?"

"Only Scarlet. She's the boss after all."

"Okay, do me a favor and keep this to yourself."

"Thanks, Reno. I really appreciate the help."

"Hey, no sweat, that's what the Turks are here, for after all."

Maggie gave him a smile that told him just how much she thought about _that_ particular statement.

"So," Reno continued in a friendlier tone. "Does this appreciation of yours extend to agreeing to go out on a date with me yet?"

Maggie smiled wider and she even reached over to pat his face. "Not in this lifetime Reno, but it does a girl's heart good that you keep trying." She took her hand away and smirked at him. "I know what dates with you mean: a few shots of vodka and a quick fuck in the janitor's closet. Call me a traditionalist, but I like a little more romance than that."

Reno didn't seem to take offense at all by and Rude got the relieved impression that he hadn't expected a different answer, but just had fun in the asking.

"I won't call you a traditionalist, but I will call you a heathen. Anyway, hopefully I'll have something for you about the theft in a couple of days."

Maggie nodded and Reno turned to start back toward the elevators. Rude was about to follow him when Maggie smiled at him.

"Nice to meet you, New Meat. I'll be seeing you again soon. I hope."

"Uh, sure."

* * *

><p>"There's a certain priority for everything and none of it is written down." Reno explained on their way out. "The highest level department I can see to is Weapons, then Urban, then Space and so on and so forth. For Tseng it's the President, then Public Safety, then Science, then Weapons, then Urban and you get where I'm going.<p>

"We always deal with personal requests first but only because we're so busy and we can't deal with each other's requests while the other has something else on. Maggie knows this and knows that requesting me for a Weapons job has to make that job my first priority. She's a smart girl, that one." Reno's approving tone made Rude uncomfortable for some reason.

Back in their office, Reno continued, "Once Tseng decides you're ready you'll deal with non-personal requests from Weapons Development down 'til you start getting requests addressed to you personally to help take the load off of us. I reckon Tseng'll start you on recruitment though, 'cause it's easy, generally not dangerous, and thankless legwork that takes up too much time for us at the moment. Of course, he may just want to chuck you in the deep end and give you one of my jobs."

Reno tried to make things more clear to Rude as they worked through the rest of the afternoon. Rude took everything in that Reno told him and memorized it, even when Reno over-explained and even repeated himself a few times. He was someone obviously unused to teaching and didn't seem to understand what was important information and what was less vital; Reno tended to simply blurt things out as it came to him over the course of the day.

That was a problem for Rude, who was a fan of procedure and knew there was a simple way to tackle any issue or problem starting with a trained set of uniform steps. Reno just seemed to brood on it for a while before getting an idea and running with it until he either came up with a result or hit a dead end. In practical terms it wasn't the most efficient way of doing things but luckily for Reno he seemed to have good instincts.

Before retiring back to the office, Reno began the theft investigation by checking surveillance tapes and security logs just as Rude would. But Reno seemed to think that it was a waste of time before it had begun and had only done so half heartedly at best.

They then investigated the rest of the requests Reno had gone through earlier in the day; Reno was just as uninterested in those. He ranted for a good few minutes when they first come back to the office about wasting his time and a few more personal but colorful remarks about the people who had filed the requests. Apparently Maggie's had been the only one that was really worth checking out. So Reno set Rude up writing up the report about it to Tseng while he leant against the doorframe and stared at the floor.

"I wonder if Maggie wasn't right when she said there had been a break in," Reno said to himself after a few moments. "You hear about stuff going missing and you assume it had to be an inside job, but realistically it would be easier for a thief to get in during the night when there's less people around than an actual Shinra worker walking out through security with a five foot long sword stashed down his pants."

"The Shinra Building has the best security. Night or day, I doubt a thief could break in." Rude pointed out.

Reno shrugged. "Why couldn't they? I did it once. Well, twice, technically. but it wasn't exactly sneaky the second time."

Rude raised an eyebrow at that.

"Maybe Tseng will finally let me test out the building security and we'll see how easy it is these days for a thief with a detailed floor plan to go on a raid in Weapons Development."

"You do mock raids to test security often?" Rude asked.

"No."

"Oh."

"Well," Reno continued, pushing himself off the doorframe, "I don't think there's much more we can do today so if you're done with that report I think it's about time to call it quits."

Rude nodded but he could feel Reno watching him as he finished off what he was doing and turned off the computer.

"What are your plans for the night?" Reno asked out of the blue.

"Nothing planned."

"We should go get drunk, have some fun. You know, proper male bonding time. Teacher will be back tomorrow and he's not gonna let me take you out to get shit faced on a school night any other time."

Rude had witnessed what Reno considered was a 'good time' and was phrasing a way to politely refuse when he realized that this invitation was probably a bigger deal for Reno than he was letting on. The comment about calling Tseng 'Teacher' was one of the few times when Reno had acknowledged the status difference between himself and Tseng. He might not talk about or treat Tseng like his boss most of the time but he seemed aware that Tseng was not someone he could pal around with like he could with another co-worker of the same status and rank. Tseng was his boss and he doubted very much the two of them socialized much out of work. Reno was trying to make friends with him and for a paranoid guy like Reno - who seemed to trust very few people even when he was joking with them and smiling to them - it was a pretty big step.

"Okay."

* * *

><p>Rude met up with Reno again later that night outside the same bar Tseng had dragged him out of Saturday. Fortunately, he was dressed a little less like a participant in a bondage porno than he had the other night. Dark pants and a green tight fitting tee, Reno looked almost casual.<p>

"Heya Rude," Reno greeted, smiling hugely.

"Isn't this the bar from the other night?" Rude asked dubiously. He and Reno didn't know each other all that well, but he would have thought his new co-worker would at least realize this wasn't exactly his kind of place.

Reno just grinned at him. "I like it here, it has atmosphere."

"Yes, I can see some of it spilling out onto the street."

Reno glanced over to the brawl taking place on the sidewalk not far from where he was standing as though he hadn't noticed it until Rude pointed it out.

"Like I said, 'Atmosphere'."

Despite misgivings, Rude obediently followed Reno inside. Inside was much like he remembered it from Saturday. The same heavy music blared out over many huge speakers in the room. It was pretty dark inside but Rude could see that there weren't quite as many people are there had been on the weekend.

Almost immediately upon entering, Reno had a woman's arm draped around his waist; she leaned in close to him as they walked to be heard over the music. She was a pretty attractive tall brunette wearing a very small glittery red dress. Rude assumed it was a dress anyway because it was slightly too big to be properly called a belt and seemed to cover, if only barely, everything a dress was supposed to.

Reno for his part neither slowed down for the woman nor changed his trajectory toward the bar. Rude followed a few paces behind and didn't get the impression that Reno was enjoying the hands on company. When they finally did get to the bar, Reno peeled the woman's arm from around him and made shooing motions at her until she went away with a big pout on her pretty red painted lips.

Without asking, Reno ordered them both four shots and the pair settled against the bar in companionable silence for a while. Not that talking was really something they could have accomplished in here even if Rude had wanted with the music blaring.

Apparently Reno was a bit of a regular customer; five minutes didn't go by when one person or another didn't come up to say hi to him. All seemed to be on almost intimate touching terms with him too, Rude noticed both men and woman. It wasn't anything overtly sexual though but familiar all the same. A touch on the arm, a whisper in the ear, an arm across the shoulders or around the waist. Reno often nodded or smiled at them but mostly sent them on their way with a word or two.

Rude wasn't sure if it was because Reno was trying to be gallant about being here with a friend already or whether it was just because he actually didn't want to spend much time talking to them. He did consider that Reno might be some sort of drug dealer on the side with the amount of casual words in the ear he was getting but didn't want to deal in front of another Shinra employee, but Rude didn't honestly think this was the case. For one thing, Reno didn't seem like a stupid person and it would have been stupid to bring Rude along to a club that he was dealing from and with Reno's salary, there was no justification to the risk either unless it was purely for the risk. But somehow Rude just didn't think it was Reno's style. Maybe to take them occasionally, but dealing was another matter entirely.

And sure enough in a random lull in music another acquaintance came up and offered something to Reno that Rude didn't quite catch the name of despite the temporary absence of music.

"Not on a work night," Reno told the guy with a shake of his head. "Even if I was irresponsible as all fuck my boss would probably shoot me if I didn't happen to accidentally shoot myself beforehand."

So despite appearances and rumor Reno wasn't completely reckless and still harbored a healthy fear of his boss. It was good to know. Of course he had drunk most of the shots he'd bought for the pair himself so apparently his model behavior didn't extend to showing up to work with a hangover.

"Suit yourself," the man replied, not too annoyed about Reno's refusal. It gave Rude the impression that Reno turned down the offer to buy more often than not. "So, who's your friend?"

"You can call him not interested."

The man grinned. "Fine, fine. You know, Mary was asking about you after you left last weekend."

"Good, she can give me my shirt back," Reno replied as though uninterested. But Rude noticed something slightly up in Reno's voice. If he hadn't been trained to watch for something like that, he might have missed it.

"Yeah, she's in here tonight dancin' with Pete. You want me to tell her you're here?"

Reno looked over at Rude momentarily before ultimately shaking his head. "Nah. I'll catch her up another time."

The drug dealer shrugged and left but Rude could see Reno's eyes searching out the darkened dance floor. Apparently it didn't matter that the music wasn't blaring at the moment for the amount of people out dancing anyway. No doubt there was enough alcohol and drug fueled minds out there than music wasn't necessary for them anymore.

"Catch up with your friends if you want. I'm probably only up for another drink myself before I head." Rude told him.

"We only just got here," Reno protested. "C'mon, we'll find a pretty girl to drape on that well muscled arm of yours and you'll be fine."

It wasn't that Rude wasn't much of a partygoer. He wasn't usually the one who left after only a couple of drinks and no fun. But settling into the Turks had made for a long tiring week so far and he wasn't one to drive himself to massive fatigue just to have a good time. He'd wanted to accept Reno's offer to show a willing friendship but that was about all. He certainly wasn't interested in a one night set up when the new workday began in less than seven hours from now. Especially not when Tseng was back in tomorrow and he was scheduled in for a meeting with the Vice-President in the afternoon.

Rude just shook his head and the expression on Reno's face could only be described as crestfallen.

"Each to his own, I guess," Reno muttered downing the last shot out of the last ordered round. "Catch you at work then."

Reno boosted himself off the bar and lost himself in the crowd just as the music started up again. Rude could still see him from where he was and watched Reno find and dance with a stunning girl with black hair and a gold dress for a few moments. As he watched another guy came up to dance with them and Rude got the distinct impression from watching them that Reno was probably not going to miss companionship of any sort for the evening. So with an amused shake of his head, Rude finished off the beer he'd ordered with Reno's last round of shots and headed for the exit.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile Reno was pretty content with a warm body pressed up against him from both sides. Or he felt he should be. But he wasn't really. He cast the odd glance back toward the bar and Rude every now and then but didn't make a move to head back there. The next time he looked, Rude was gone. Reno tried to forget about the other Turk's hasty departure and live more in the moment, a moment that was getting more touchy feely by the second from both sides, but just couldn't lose himself to it like normal.<p>

After a moment more Reno heaved a sigh and distangled himself, muttering fake apologies nobody would hear, and headed off after Rude.

* * *

><p>Rude had let his guard down. He'd left the club with ringing ears and the beginning of a fatigue headache and hadn't been playing close enough attention to his surroundings. So he hadn't noticed the two guys detach themselves from the wall outside the club and follow him till they were far enough away from the noise for him to hear their footsteps.<p>

He was about to turn when he felt something hard about the size of a gun barrel being jammed into his back.

"Your wallet or-"

The guy didn't finish. Rude planted an elbow into the guy's face without looking and turned to confront the second one but stopped in surprise when he saw that had already been taken care of.

The other guy was on his knees with Reno's arm around his throat. Reno let go of him after a few moments and let the unconscious man drop to the pavement. Stepping in front of him, Reno grinned at Rude.

"Not even safe for murderers out on the streets 'round here."

"So it would seem," Rude agreed. "What happened to Mary?"

"Nothing that hasn't happened before and won't happen again in the future. C'mon, your place is on the way to mine, I'll walk back with you. Past my bedtime anyway. Don't worry," Reno continued, stepping on the downed man's back on his way to fall into step beside Rude. "Once you get a rep as a Turk no one will dream of even looking at you funny in the street. Not that you obviously can't handle yourself, but hey, any perk is worth having in this job."

Rude wasn't sure if being a Turk would mean he would be feared on sight in the future, but it was true that nobody bothered him again on the way home while he walked next to Reno.

* * *

><p><em>Notes: Another massive chapter. Don't worry there will be plot soon I promise, I'm just trying to get them to bond first. Work was still slow and hard on this one so please keep the reviews coming because they keep me going.<em>

_Hugs_

_AF_


	6. All Together

**Nothing To Say**

**Chapter 6 **

**All Together**

Today being Wednesday was the first day this week when all three Turks would be in at work at the same time. For Rude this was meaningful for a few reasons. For one it was his first opportunity since last Saturday night to see the full team in action. It was certainly the first time he would see the team working when all members were sober and alert anyway. Sort of. He wasn't hung over this morning, Rude didn't really get hung over all that much and certainly not from the amount he drank last night.

That being said it was also the first opportunity he would have to get some real information for Rufus on how Tseng and Reno worked together, a question which Rude still had to answer to even his own satisfaction.

The last and final reason Rude was looking forward to today was because Tseng had told him that today he would start to be eased into his own assignments. For now they would be supervised, but apart from that supervision, Rude was basically on his own. It was going to be a very interesting day.

Tseng was at work when Rude arrived, which was surprising, as Rude was eager to begin the day and had arrived half an hour early. But Tseng was already here, at one of the desks in the outer office, frowning over some paperwork. Rude recognized it as the paperwork Reno had been working on yesterday afternoon and had left for Tseng.

"I like this piece of fiction you left on the desk this morning, better known as the weekly accounts."

Rude stood for a moment and waited for Tseng to realize he was talking to the wrong person.

When no answer was forthcoming, he did look up and seemed momentarily surprised to see Rude standing there. "Oh, Rude." Tseng looked at his watch. "Of course it's too early for Reno."

Tseng got up, collecting the various papers he had been looking over. He gestured to the now clean desk. "This is yours, Reno's is the one opposite hidden under all that rubbish, as you already know. I have a desk in the inner office that I'll be using from now on so feel free to use this one to store anything you'd like."

Rude knew there was an inner office; when he'd been at headquarters for training the then Turk Leader, Hawkly, used it. Since Rude's arrival last Saturday he'd noticed that more often than not, Tseng would work from the desk in the outer office with Reno. It was probably just easier considering that there were just the two of them to work in the same room. But now Tseng seemed determined to give that up and reclaim his own space.

Rude nodded while Tseng crossed to Reno's desk and dumped those papers he was carrying down onto the top layer of papers already covering the desk.

"I will be in my office. When Reno comes in five minutes late bring him into my office and we'll attempt to have a meeting."

Reno was actually ten minutes late but Rude decided tactfully not to mention that to him. Though after they went into Tseng's office, Tseng wasn't quite so tactful.

"Reno, you're late."

"Yes I am," Reno replied in a bright tone, dropping into one of the chairs opposite the desk. "After I saw Rude home last night I got a call from security about what turned out to be a bogus bomb threat to the building and spent half the night dealing with it. I've had about three hours of sleep and am practically on time despite that. So you might want to keep your bitching to yourself this morning, if you don't mind."

"You should have called me in if it was that important," Tseng said instead of the apology Rude expected.

"Excuse me for not wanting to ruin your first decent time off in months. You're welcome by the way."

Tseng looked a little taken back by that. "Thank you, Reno. But I'm keen to hear the excuse you might have for that fantasy novel you left for me to look over this morning."

"How do you know that isn't a true and completely factual account of my expenses for the week?"

"Because I know how much per bottle that rot gut you like to drink is worth and by my estimation you're trying to charge Shinra for six bottles of the stuff. And I might add you listed this expenditure under miscellaneous B." Rude knew that while something like that would never be seen by the accounts department, it was the code the Turks used for various bribes and grease money.

"It _was_ a bribe," Reno insisted. "I needed it to bribe myself to come into work everyday."

As far as Rude could tell, this was Reno's idea of making a joke after being caught out. Reno might come into work hung over, but he had never seemed drunk despite his wild reputation after work hours.

"Hilarious, Reno. You make enough money, stop using the work account. I know you're only doing it because you think it's a bit of a laugh anyway. This goes for all that other shit you put on the account too. If you can't be more inventive, don't do it, understood?"

"Creative I can do," Reno told him with a grin.

Rude noticed that it wasn't like Tseng forbade him from doing it in the future, just told him to cover his tracks better if he did do it. So that was a little weird. It was probably a Turk thing.

"Take a seat, Rude, there are a few things I must discuss with the both of you."

As Rude sat in the only other chair Reno said, "This sounds ominous."

"Hardly. In fact I think you'll like what I have to say for the most part. Normally Turks run with partners, you are both aware of this. We haven't been able to assign partners recently because of the lack of numbers and even now three Turks isn't even half the compliment we have been used to in the past. For all intents and purposes you two will now become partners until such a time as when you sponsor your own recruits. Realistically you will both be working separately most of the time, but for larger important or dangerous missions, you will complete them together as partners normally would."

Tseng was speaking a little reluctantly and Rude had to wonder why. Luckily he didn't have to wonder for long because Reno had also noticed and Reno never kept his thoughts to himself.

"So who made you bend over this morning? Or is that look on your face because you sat on something uncomfortable?"

Tseng glared at him. "I have been advised by management that I need to start taking my administrative role more seriously." Tseng told him carefully.

"So it was Heidaggar huh? Man, do I feel sorry for you." Reno guessed apparently correctly.

"It doesn't matter!" Tseng snapped. "Just drop it. This is how things will have to run from now on. I will only be on missions and doing fieldwork when necessary or for anything important, you both will handle the rest."

Reno looked at Rude for a moment and then shut his mouth. Tseng met Reno's eyes for the briefest time and then he looked away. If Rude hadn't been watching he would have missed it and it made him a little uncomfortable to think that perhaps he wasn't totally trusted by his fellow Turks entirely just yet. Of course he was in a way spying on them for Rufus, but they weren't to know that hopefully. After all if they did know they would have been making more of an effort to get along in front of him instead of the usual bickering Rude had seen so far.

"Rude will have his own missions starting today and one of us will be there to supervise. Who depends on who is free at the time."

"Really?" Reno asked with some surprise. "You trust me to supervise someone else?"

"No," Tseng replied bluntly, "but my time is restricted so you will be required to be with him most of the time. Are there any current assignments you have pending that we might give to Rude?"

That was a delicate way of asking whether Reno had anything easy to fob off on the new guy but Rude didn't take offence. He _was_ the new guy, easy was the best way to ease him into things.

Reno spent a few moments looking up at the ceiling, bottom lip drawn up between his teeth apparently thinking about it.

"I guess Maggie's request is probably a good one to start on. But I have a feeling that might be connected to our larger Soldier problem so I'm not certain."

Tseng tapped a few keys on his computer, read for a little while before he responded. "The missing Soldier weapons? I can see why you might think that. Okay, I see your point. Besides, I would rather give Rude an assignment that didn't request you personally. I know Maggie did, don't give me that look."

"Look, anything else we have is really minor, If you have me tagging along with Rude on all these little pissy assignments who's gonna deal with the Solider stuff? Don't tell me you are. I saw the pile of requests that are sitting on your desk, you don't have time, either."

"Fine, you can brief security and the troopers for anything really trivial."

"Gee, that'll be fun," Reno mumbled sarcastically.

"Do I look like I care whether you find it fun or not?"

"Sometimes, when the light hits your face just so…"

"Can it, Reno. Palm off anything small to the other departments, you can have Rude look into the weapons. If it eventuates into anything major just let me know."

"I see you've thought of everything."

"I have," Tseng answered and this time it was with the smallest hint of a smile. "I've also remembered that you have firearm training tonight. Even if I don't see you for the rest of the day, I expect you to be there by six no matter what. You aren't getting out of it this time."

"You're joking, right?"

"Reno, there are three year olds in the slums that can hit their targets with more accuracy than you can. You need the practice."

"What about Rude?" Reno asked with sudden inspiration.

"He doesn't need it."

Reno rolled his eyes and sat back in his seat. "Whatever."

Tseng took a deep breath and turned his attention to Rude. "Go with Reno to the briefing for the other departments then you can start on this assignment. This is _your_ assignment, but if Reno takes over you must listen to him. I hate to admit it, but he does have more field experience than you and is your technical senior in our little hierarchy." Tseng glared back at Reno, "A fact he will not take advantage of without exceptionally good reason."

Reno just grinned back at him. "You just gotta love those technicalities. Oh hey, and I need to run something by you. Maggie gave me the idea that perhaps our thieves broke into the tower to steal those weapons. I know we've been putting it off for a while, but I think it's time we tested building security."

"You want to raid the tower," Tseng guessed knowingly.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted me to do it originally. It's a good opportunity to see if someone can break into Weapons Research."

"Okay fine, make it happen."

"You're the boss, Boss," Reno said, getting to his feet in preparation of leaving the office.

"Really?" Tseng asked sarcastically. "Sometimes I wonder."

* * *

><p>Security had their own department on one of the lower levels of the tower and it functioned as a headquarters for a few different departments that all had to do with Shinra security and defense. Generally this department was overseen by Heidaggar and was ostensibly called the Public and Internal Security Safety Division. It wasn't a standard kind of department because it mainly comprised of different sub divisions that had their own workload, ranks and hierarchy but tended to help each other out when the workload started to overflow.<p>

Within this coalition there was a general sort of hierarchy that people sort of adhered to when necessary. Heidaggar was at the top, of course, and the main groups under that consisted of Turks, Solider, General Military, Shinra Personnel security, Shinra General Security and Building Security and the hierarchy followed mainly in that order depending on what was happening at the time. Tseng was generally considered as Heidaggar's second in command but high-ranking First Class Soldiers were too. Reno explained to Rude that technically he was on some sort of level below Solider First Class but above Second Class but it didn't always work out that way.

Reno was still in some ways the new guy and he didn't tend to command the same respect as Tseng did and he admitted to Rude that the bulk of that was his fault. He didn't act like a boss to them, he said. Acting like a boss would be stupid considering some of the men he'd be giving orders to were twice his age. He didn't seem entirely displeased by the lack of respect but he did tell Rude that sometimes it created difficulties. Rude didn't exactly follow what that meant that but he assumed he'd find out.

They entered a conference room of sorts where at least thirty or so men were already waiting for them since Reno had called down almost an hour ago to set up the meeting. There was a long table in the middle of the room where about a dozen men could sit comfortably but the rest were either lounging against the walls or sitting on tables pushed up against the back walls. There was quite the array of different uniforms present: business suits, Soldiers of varying ranks, red military sergeants and right down to the blue suited troopers.

Most of them started cheering when Reno walked in. It wasn't a congratulatory cheer, though, apparently they had been waiting a while. A few calls of, "'Bout time, Reno!" and "Glad you decided to show!" were thrown around including some screwed up bits of paper but it all seemed to come from a light atmosphere of general ribbing.

Reno didn't seem very fazed by it at all and even called back a few jibes at some of the more cutting remarks.

He made it up to the head of the room and the attended quieted down a little bit. Before Reno could speak though a military man asked Reno a very loud question.

"If this is about taking more pissy Turk overflow Reno, you'll have to blow me first."

"What if I said please in a really nice and meaningful way instead?" Reno returned.

"Hey Reno, did you know you had a mean looking shadow following you around?" A trooper asked from the back of the room.

"Yeah, everyone this is Rude, he's our new Turk. Be nice to him, otherwise he can and will rip both your arms off."

Rude decided not to dissuade anyone of this notion. It would probably work better in the long run.

"Cor, I wouldn't half believe it too," the Trooper informed a nearby friend in a loud voice.

"Please ain't gonna cut it this time, Reno," the first man who had spoken came back. "I know you guys are snowed under right now, but yous have to get more people than just one. We all got our own work to take care of."

A few "Yeahs," and "That's right!" echoed around the room but Reno just spoke over the top of them.

"Sure must have been a real fast paced day when I walked into the barracks the other day to see half the people in there playing poker and watching TV. Look half this shit I have here for you is handled by your departments anyway the only reason it even ends up with us because the people who submit it to us have an overinflated ego and think their problems are Turk problems."

"Bit full of yourself aren't you, Reno?" A security man asked him. "You think your time is _so_ precious."

Reno grinned. "Yes, frankly I do. And you must think we're some kinda hot shit too when you called me in after hours to deal with that bogus bomb threat last night instead of just handling the situation yourself."

"It's protocol," The man replied grumpily.

"It is fucking not," Reno told him. "And you know it. Bomb threats are supposed to handled internally by Security and anything external is supposed to go to the cops. You just wanted a quick fix. Don't all of you grin at him like he's been caught out 'cause all your departments do the same thing. But that's cool, I'm not bitching. But I was hoping the back scratching went both ways that's all. You want Turks to deal with the big nasty shit, you have to help us out with the stupid pissy shit. Otherwise the next time half a dozen terrorists come knocking on the tower doors we Turks might just decide that it isn't our problem or that you need to say pretty please with blow jobs on top." Reno concluded directing the last part to the first man who had spoken.

While a few of the assembled looked a little put out by this, Rude noticed that the majority were trying hard not to grin. It made him think that this verbal sparring was not uncommon and that it was even maybe a kind of entertainment for them in an otherwise uneventful day.

Reno tossed a few folders around to the highest-ranking person of each department and went on with the briefing outlining what needed to be done for each assignment. He wasn't particularly thorough from a military perspective but Reno didn't really understand how military minds functioned, not having had that sort of a background like Rude did. The meeting soon dispersed shortly after Reno was done and a few came over to either say 'hi' or talk about the assignments some more.

When the last person was gone, Rude asked him about the vague briefing he gave. Reno just shrugged it off.

"Look, if I start issuing orders like I really am their commander I'll get a bunch of lip and I'd probably deserve it. I gave each assignment to the department it most suited and they know more than me about how their department would deal with it. Giving 'em a bit more free reign makes them feel better about doing it, gets it done quicker and doesn't make me look like some know it all prat. Tseng could've done it though. You should see them when he issues orders. They all shut up pay attention and afterwards it's all 'Yes, Sir' and 'Of course, Sir' all respectable like. They won't do that with me 'cause most of them have been here longer than me, and I'm not especially awe-inspiring to them. I tell you, you get drunk at one party and dance half naked on someone's coffee table and the respect is all gone."

He wasn't sure if Reno was joking about that last part or not but didn't get a chance to ask because a Solider from the meeting came back into the room.

He wore the dark maroon uniform of a Second Class and gave Reno an odd sort of smile.

"Heya Naeri, what's up?"

Naeri seemed to be struggling with his question for a while and it was a bit bizarre to see a Solider of his class a little loss for words, frowning and looking at nothing in particular. He was a tallish man who seemed no older than Reno with light hair. He looked up after a while, his dark green eyes lit with that mako mark of a Solider. "I heard you have Owen and Rubin in custody."

Reno's expression didn't even twitch when he responded with, "Really? That's news to me. What did they do?"

Naeri didn't seem to know where to go after that flat out denial. "I was going to ask you the same thing. They disappeared; I thought the Turks or someone must have captured them."

Reno shrugged and continued collecting the papers he'd bought along for the meeting into an untidy bundle. "I hadn't heard anyone had disappeared. Why would we capture them, did they do something bad?"

It was the second time Reno had prodded him about what the pair might have done and it was a little sloppy on Reno's part to ask a second time. Naeri got a little uncomfortable at that but tried to look like it had only been a casual question after all. He wasn't a very good actor though.

"Not that I know of, just heard a rumor, that's all, and was wondering if you knew anything about it. Anyway, I'll catch you later, Reno."

Rude waited till Naeri left the room before opening his mouth but Reno immediately gave him a silent signal to kill the conversation right there. In fact he didn't let on that there was anything wrong until they arrived back in the Turk rec room near their office and Reno had closed the door behind them.

"Hopefully that might scare him off whatever he was planning on doing."

"You mean you meant to freak him out?" Rude asked dubiously.

"He took me a little off guard," Reno admitted slumping down into one of the well-worn sofas in the room. "It was the best I could come up with. It probably was just rumor that made him ask, but the denial coupled with how obviously I was trying to get some info out of him should make him think twice about doing anything rash."

"Like what?"

"Like, I dunno. Talking about the rumors with other Soldiers. Trying to do a runner himself. Or all of the above. He's a high enough rank to attempt to find out if we're keeping another Solider in custody but the fact that I denied knowledge of it will make him think we've disappeared our two runaways. And when Shinra decides to disappear someone they tend to stay that way permanently. That's enough to freak anyone out of getting caught up in the same mess."

Rude was impressed. Caught off guard or not, Reno had bought them some investigation time out of it.

* * *

><p>Reno was leaning up against the wall yawning by the time Tseng showed up. Frankly, Tseng looked like shit.<p>

After one whole day of being on office duties it was possible that Tseng looked worse than after a normal day of running down terrorists and putting up with Reno, which even Reno could admit was probably a tiring experience for anyone. It didn't really surprise him that Tseng looked even more wasted, though. The main reason Tseng had probably been told to look after the department better was because both Turks had let a lot of paperwork slide in the past couple of months. It was the most unimportant part of their jobs and basically they'd let almost every part of it slack off because they had too much else to do. Tseng had probably just started in on that mountain of paperwork and the tedium and mass of it seemed to have sucked the very life out of him.

"You should be practicing already," Tseng informed him wearily.

"Yeah I know, but I was too tempted to see if I might be able to go to sleep standing up."

Tseng actually smiled at that.

"You know, Boss", Reno continued, "You could get any of the trainers to help me out with this. You don't have to do everything yourself."

Tseng walked over to Reno, took his gun out of its holster underneath Reno's jacket and held the weapon up in front of Reno's eyes.

"I'll take that as a 'no' then?" Reno said taking the weapon and flicking off the safety.

"Correct."

Reno followed Tseng over to the practice area and took up his stance. After a few seconds, Tseng came up behind him and readjusted him just as he always did.

"You know Tseng," Reno said right at a point where his boss was right up behind him pressed in close enough so he could reach around and adjust Reno's grip, "You keep snuggling up like this I might start thinking I'm on a date rather than learning how to kill people."

After he was satisfied with Reno's position, Tseng stepped back and gave his handiwork the once over with his eyes.

"I'm training you so you will be less likely to kill people when you don't need to. Shooting to kill is easier than merely wounding a possible source of information. Eventually you'll be good enough to pick out where to shoot and when to cause just the right amount of damage."

"_Eventually_, yeah."

Reno squeezed off a few shots at the paper target at the end of the shooting range. Out of the ten bullets, six had hit their target, three had missed completely and the last had given his paper target a graze on the side of the head. It wasn't that he was bad at this, but he was nowhere near as good as a Turk should be.

"I don't understand," Tseng told him looking over the results. "You have good eyes, quick reflexes and a steady arm, you should be good at this."

"I've never liked guns", Reno admitted. "They're so unsporting."

"They're handy." Tseng corrected him. "We've been over this more times than I can count and you haven't improved much recently. I don't know how else to teach you how to do this."

"Maybe if we weren't doing this at the end of the work day when we're both tired might be a start." Reno told him slapping home a fresh magazine.

"Maybe," Tseng conceded. "Maybe you just don't have the right motivation. Guns are always a third option for you. You use your electro mag rod first, your fists second and only bring out your gun as a last resort."

"You're going to take my nightstick off me aren't you?" Reno guessed sullenly.

"I am, but only temporarily. I also want you training and practicing in the mornings from now on. I will find time to accompany Rude for a couple of hours each morning while you practice."

"This isn't just about my poor aim now, is it?" Reno asked. "You said it yourself that I'm getting better at hand to hand and all that other stuff. This is about Heidaggar and what he said to you isn't it?"

"It's part of it," Tseng answered. "Like it or not, you're my second in command and if I am going to be stuck in my office most of the time, I need to know I can rely on you because I won't be there to back you up if things get dicey anymore."

"Are you worried about me, or about the Turk's rep?"

"Both."

"Aww, you softy you."

"I have to worry about someone don't I?"

Reno had never realized it before but it occurred to him in that moment that Tseng didn't have any other friends. Sure, he had a few acquaintances around the city he might call friends in a loose way, but he had no real friends at all. Because Tseng lived his work he'd only ever really had work friends and most of those had been Turks. And okay. Reno had been responsible for the deaths of three of them but he mainly felt bad about the one he didn't kill, Dallen.

Reno could relate on some level, Tarran had been his only close friend ever and he had moved off to bigger and better things in Junon. For Tseng it was worse because while Reno might get to see Tarran occasionally, Dallen was dead and he'd lost his best friend for good. It never occurred to Reno that he might now be Tseng's only close friend left. Sure, on most days they didn't act much like friends and if they'd not been forced together by circumstance they might never have chosen to friends, but deep down Reno knew that they were.

Tseng might be riding him about training all the time and a part of that reason was because of pride that he hadn't chosen the wrong person for the job but a bigger part of it had more to do with getting Reno to understand what he was capable of as well as preparing him better so he didn't die on him just like Dallen had. It sometimes made Reno feel like he should be nicer to Tseng because not that many people in Reno's life had thought that he was worth the effort.

"Look Tseng, I'll get this, you know I will. You don't need to fret over little old me."

Tseng gave him a lopsided smiled. "Of course you will get this. Because if you don't have perfect accuracy in within two weeks from now I will shoot you myself."

And sometimes he just felt like being a prick. "Yeah? Well grab your spectacles Old Man, 'cause if you miss you won't get a second chance."

"For once I hope your bragging is well founded. Actually I hope your bravado also extends to breaking and entering. I have left something in the vault in Weapons Research I wish for you to retrieve for me tonight."

"Jeez, you don't waste any time. And you want me to bring back proof and all. I'm beginning to think you don't have faith in me."

Tseng didn't reply, just smiled and motioned for Reno to carry on practicing.

* * *

><p>Rude thought for a moment on how he would phrase it. He'd been thinking about what exactly he was going to report to Rufus ever since that first meeting with the Vice-President and he still didn't quite know what he was going to say now that he was in Rufus's office with the Vice President waiting for his report. In the end, the best he could come up with was, "It's complicated, Sir."<p>

Rufus blinked at that. "Complicated? How can it possibly be complicated? They either work well together or they don't. How is there a gray area in that?"

"It's strange. At first I thought they couldn't stand the sight of one another but then a few moments later they shared a joke and a laugh. I don't think they hate each other. I think they are sick of one another."

"Care to explain?"

Rude thought about it for a moment. "Sir, imagine someone you have next to nothing in common with other than both liking the same movie. Now imagine you will be spending every day with that person, doing nothing but watching that movie over and over again for months, ten hours a day with nothing to do other than to watch the movie and talk about the movie. How long do you think it would take before you wanted to murder that person?"

Rufus's brow furrowed. "You think they want to kill one another?"

Rufus obviously wasn't getting his point. He wanted to say 'No, Sir. I think they actually like one another and trust one another deep down, but they are very sick of one another as well. Professionally they are a good team. Each knows the others strengths and weaknesses and in serious situations, this knowledge allows them to carry out tasks easily and with complete understanding of their roles.' But what he did say was, "Yes, but they won't."

Rufus stared at Rude for a moment longer in utter incomprehension before he spoke again. "So do we have a problem?"

"Too early to say, Sir."

Rufus waited, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. "Perhaps we'll give it another week or two and then try this again."

Rude didn't respond.

"You don't say much do you?" Rufus observed.

* * *

><p><em>Well Rude and Reno have become partners and Tseng has been unhappily relegated to being a desk monkey. Poor Tseng, and poor Rude too come to that. We'll just have to see how it all turns out won't we.<em>

_AF_


	7. How Mako Can Work For You

**Nothing To Say**

**Chapter 7**

**How Mako Can Work For You and Other Interesting Facts.**

After his training with Tseng that night Reno went home for a little while to change, eat something, drink something and prepare himself for the night ahead.

A common misconception about camouflaging yourself by wearing black for a night time raid was that in a city, shadows were never very often pitch black. Dark gray was generally better and this was what Reno dressed in; what he thought of as his thieving clothes - dark gray pants and shirt and with a similarly colored head covering to mask his unstealthy bright red hair. He'd bought the outfit when he'd first joined up with Shinra and Reno was a little weirded out to note that the clothes didn't fit him quite as well as they once did. Rankin had been right; he was definitely putting on weight.

Reno ate very little that night, though. Over eating, especially after not eating a lot through the day, would make him tired and sluggish which would be a big problem later on.

One concession Reno did give himself though was to have a few shots of his favorite brand before heading out into the night. Doing something this stupid could not be attempted _completely_ sober.

All in all he'd had little time to actually prepare. Under normal circumstances he'd scope the place with a practiced eye before trying to break in, but since Tseng had given him the go ahead and was expecting it done as soon as possible, Reno couldn't wait around another week to get himself better prepared. Besides, he worked there, he already had an unfair advantage over other possible break in artist. It wasn't like this was his first ever time attempting something like this, so Reno had a lot of past experience going for him, too.

But past experiences, back when he'd done this kind of thing with any sort of regularity, felt like a lifetime ago to Reno, now. This past year had made him feel a lot older, slower and apparently weightier by at least twenty pounds as near as his pessimistic mind could figure.

And it wasn't like his insider knowledge would give him any great benefit other than an access card which he didn't plan on using and a good knowledge of the interior of the tower and what security to expect.

Not that security was expecting _him_. That was another part of the stupidity. Warning them he was about to do something like this sort of ruined the point of doing it so Reno might well end up getting shot by a trigger happy guard who wanted to become a hero.

So he set off into the night with the warmth of the whiskey still burning a little in his throat and the knowledge that he was about to attempt to break into his own place of work for no other reasons than to test a theory, test Shinra's tower defense and lastly, just simply because he could.

Reno grinned. It might be stupid but he loved any opportunity he could get to show off.

* * *

><p>It was near dawn when Tseng woke up in his bed.<p>

He yawned widely and looked at his clock. His alarm wasn't due to go off for another hour or so and Tseng had been so tired the night before that he was surprised he'd woken up before it had gone off.

Unless of course something else had woken him up prematurely. He listened carefully, but could hear nothing moving around that might suggest an unwelcome guest, but since he owed his current state of still being alive to his suspicious mind and his anal attention to detail he reached for the gun he kept next to his bed and got up slowly and very quietly.

Even before Tseng eased his bedroom door open he could see the faint light from the other room filtering through the door cracks. He knew he hadn't left any lights on when he'd gone to bed so the sight made him uneasy to say the least.

When he stepped past the doorframe and into the main room he saw which lamp that was on. It was over by the window, where the sheer white curtains were being moved by the light breeze coming in through the open window.

Suspicions proved, Tseng bought his gun up and listened again to the sounds around him hoping to determine whether his night time intruder was still in the apartment or not. From where he was standing there weren't a lot of places for them to hide. Maybe around in the kitchen, or perhaps in the bathroom. But the bathroom had two doorways. One led in from the main room, the other in his bedroom…

Before he could turn, he felt something hard and cold press into the back of his neck and Tseng sighed at his own stupidity.

"Idiot," Tseng muttered to himself.

It might have been the radiating aura of smugness coming from behind him or simply the cocky voice but Tseng suddenly felt very annoyed.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, you should be happy that you trained me so well."

Tseng rolled his eyes and turned around the see Reno standing in his bedroom doorway, self satisfied grin in place and twirling a silver letter opener In the fingers of his left hand.

"I don't remember training you to break into my apartment," Tseng told him. He'd meant it to sound cold and reprimanding, but he couldn't force it. His building had a lot of security features and he was a little impressed that Reno hadn't managed to set off any alarms. He'd set him up carefully by distracting him with the lamp, too, and Tseng was proud despite his annoyance. Reno had practice though. This wasn't the first time he'd broken in to Tseng's apartment.

He was also admittedly a little relieved that his intruder had been Reno and not someone who really wanted him dead.

"Nah, I learnt to do that years ago, remember?"

"I remember. So I assume your mission was a success since I didn't get any angry or frightened phone calls from building security."

Reno stopped playing with the letter opener and passed it to Tseng. "Yeah but it almost wasn't. I assume this is yours. You left it in the vault in Weapons Development, yes?"

Tseng nodded and Reno looked vaguely annoyed for a moment. "You know I can't actually break into a vault, right?"

That was true enough, Reno didn't have the patience for safe cracking. He was good at picking most mundane locks but got fed up with anything too complicated. And even simple locks seemed like a nuisance to him if he could think of a faster way to achieve his goals. Reno would rather dislocate his own fingers than try to find something to pick the lock on a pair of handcuffs in order to free himself of them.

"Most of the things that were stolen were kept in that vault. I needed to see if the average thief could get into it."

Reno grinned at him. "Shame on you for calling me 'average'. And just because I can't unlock a safe using my otherwise vast criminal knowledge doesn't mean I don't have other strengths."

"And which one helped you get into the vault exactly?"

"I know people. I know how their minds work." Reno told him mysteriously.

Tseng just glared at him, unwilling to play into Reno's little game.

"Clark," Reno relented after a moment referring to one of the weapons researchers. "He'd forget to dress in the morning if his wife didn't remind him. He wrote the code down on a scrap of paper in his desk."

It wasn't technically cheating because Reno made a valid point. He was good at figuring people out and knowing what they would do. Clark had a bad memory and so Reno would have figured the man would be stupid enough to write the code down somewhere for his own reference.

"Any major problems?"

"Unfortunately, no. It'll be interesting to see if the cameras caught me but I gotta admit I think I managed to stay clear of most of them till I got to security and shut the system down. I gotta say, I've seen more sophisticated systems guarding a slum lord's mansion than we have here. I don't think there've been any upgrades in the last ten years. And there's less security staff around at night than I would have expected. I think it's entirely possible someone broke in one night. All they'd need was the most basic knowledge of the layout and systems and they could just about go wherever they wanted. After Weapons Development, I went all the way to the President's office and sat in his chair making expensive calls for about half and hour and no one bothered me once."

This news was not great. It also meant a lot of extra work if they had to beef up the systems in light of this new information.

"Expensive phone calls? That seems a little tame for you."

"Did I mention they were to sex lines?"

Tseng snorted to cover the laugh he would have made otherwise. "Still, for you it was pretty restrained compared to the last time you decided to make mischief in the building."

Reno shrugged. "I might not be the most model employee in existence, but I still work there. What's the point in pissing too many people off? And besides I might have graffitied Scarlet's office a little, stole the candy stash from Palmer's desk and hidden it inside Heidaggar's computer, but I was still a pretty good boy all facts considered."

"I suppose it was less than I expected," Tseng admitted. "Reno, you do realize what's going to happen to that candy when the computer has been running for a few hours?"

Reno smirked. "Yep."

"Reno, you can't just do a simple assignment without doing something wrong, can you?"

"Ah, Tseng, you're smiling on the inside, I can tell. And hey, you're so stuck in your own little world of no fun that you need people like me to do the fun things for you."

"I doubt we have the same definition of fun."

"This is mostly true. But you can't honestly say you won't be amused tomorrow when chocolate starts leaking out of Heidaggar's computer."

That did make Tseng smile a little, though he tried to cover it quickly. It didn't matter: Reno still saw it.

* * *

><p>After his morning firearm practice, Reno had to devote the rest of his day into supervising Rude. He met up with him in the Turk's rec room where Reno needed a large cup of very strong coffee before he could do much more thinking other than remembering how to walk. It had been an early morning for Reno. Well technically it had been a late night that had pretty much flowed straight into morning with little to no sleep in between.<p>

"Late night?" Rude asked him.

Reno smothered a yawn, almost spilling his coffee in the process. "Late night, early morning, a bit of both and no sleep between."

"The tower raid?"

"Yeah. And my conclusion is that I could have broken into this place when I was ten with little difficulty. Unfortunately for us, that makes things a lot more difficult. Our list of suspects just went from about twenty to two hundred or so."

"I did some work this morning before you came in about a possible break in to the Weapons Department. If it wasn't an inside job it's strange that the thieves would know exactly where to look for their targets and how to get through security, even if you did manage it last night. You know the building layout; you know what is important and where to look. Others would not be so privy."

"Right, yeah," Reno said sitting down on one of the sofas and putting his feet on the coffee table. "I thought about that, too. I was wondering if maybe one of the employees tipped them off. It may not have been an employee who did the deed, but they must have had help from someone who's worked here. Is that what you were thinking?"

"It's a possibility. I remember when we were up there the other day that some of the floor had been repaired recently."

Reno grinned. "Yeah Scarlet thought it was okay to test her latest greatest WMD last month inside the building. It blew up on the first test taking a large chuck of the work area with it. No one was hurt but you should have seen Rufus's face go purple." Reno watched Rude's serious expression for a while before he caught on. "You think the repairmen might have sold the information?"

"They were outside contractors, I checked. Security cleared them but just because they aren't criminals doesn't mean they don't know any."

"It's not enough," Reno said after some careful thinking. "Even if the contractors knew the layout of the research floor, they'd have no real clue about the rest of the building's security. What's the name of this head contractor, anyway?"

"Irving."

Reno tossed the name around in his head for a while before his eyes widened just a little bit. "Not Reg Irving is it?"

"No, Robert."

Reno's face took a look on an unbelieving look. "Fucking morons."

"Morons?"

"Yeah, security. Robert Irving isn't a criminal but his cousin sure as hell is. I know him, he's one of the few people that has ever managed to escape the Tower after being bought in for questioning. Not that he's a great escape artist, a trooper forgot to lock his cell up properly -so I'm told. It was before my time here. But he still made it out without setting off too many alarms."

"Sounds promising."

"You bet your ass it does." Reno said, getting to his feet.

* * *

><p>Reno liked coming back to the slums. He felt he fit in here more; he felt almost like he'd come home and he loved the familiarity of the streets and the people. Unfortunately, the slums didn't really feel the same way about him and his new uniform. While most people knew better than the pick a fight with a Turk, there was always those that just couldn't resist the opportunity to have a go at him. It was made doubly worse for people that had known him or at least knew who Reno was and where he had come from. They felt like he was worse than just another Shinra dog because he had betrayed his heritage and joined with the oppressors.<p>

Apparently.

Reno and Rude were seeking out one such man now. Irving was one of the few people who had escaped the tower before and knew how to get around the systems. He was also a terrorist and hated everyone from Shinra. He especially hated Reno because Reno had come up against him before as a rebel and also as a Turk. Even if Irving wasn't behind the actual theft, coincidence told Reno that he probably sold information to those who were behind it.

"Keep your eyes open, I know he's here," Reno told Rude.

They inched their way into the darkened apartment with their guns out. After checking the front room, Reno motioned for Rude to circle around one way while he tried the kitchen. Reno was just about the check around the corner of the doorway when his arm was grabbed. He was pulled forward, smashing his head into the doorway and Reno lost the grip on his gun and nearly lost his grip on consciousness. He managed to jerk free and take an unsteady step back. Irving chased Reno out into the room, a metal bar in his hand, raised and ready to kill. The metal bar was thick and if Reno tried to block it as he was about to do now, it would still probably break his arm. Still, it was better than it breaking his skull.

A hand reached past Irving and plucked the bar out of his hands as though taking candy from a baby. Irving was propelled into the room by the unseen force behind him. The push made Irving take a header into the couch in the front room where he spent a few precious moments groaning and trying to get back to his feet.

Rude took that time to help Reno get steady on his feet.

Reno just looked at Rude in amazement. He had thought at best he was going to get a broken arm, probably worse afterwards. He had completely forgotten what it was like these days to have backup and that he wasn't here alone.

Assured Reno was back on his feet, Rude went over to the recovering Irving and grabbed his shirt collar, lifting the shorter man off his feet and up to eye level with Rude's sunglasses.

"To whom did you sell the security information?" Rude asked him in a cool voice.

"Fuck off, Shinra man!"

Rude kept quiet and continued to hold the struggling man without the slightest hint that it was causing him the least effort to do so. Rude did this for ten minutes before the man seemed to calm down and even get a little scared.

"Reno, get 'im off me."

"You just tried to brain me with a steel bar, Irving. I'm a little disappointed he's not beating your head against the wall."

Rude gave the man a cold smile. "That's an option."

"Fine, fine, just put me down, would you?"

Rude put him down and took out a notepad. Apparently after Reno's joke on Monday to Rankin he'd actually gone ahead and gotten one anyway.

Irving tried to use his newfound freedom to make a run for it, but Rude was ready for it. With the hand not holding the notepad he grabbed the back of Irving's collar and pulled the man back and off his feet. The Irving landed on his back, winded and with wide eyes on the man who stood over him and had planted a foot on his chest to stop him from getting up again.

"Spell out the names in full and tell me where we can find them," Rude told the man flipping open his notebook as though nothing had just happened.

Reno just stood back with a satisfied grin on his face. Rude was good at this, better than Reno himself and this knowledge, the first real sign that Rude was going to be a skilled and productive member of the team loosened something in him that he hadn't realized had been wound tight in the first place. It almost felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders and Reno felt a small part of him relax. He hadn't realized how stressed he'd been trying to stay ahead of things; he hadn't even realized how much that stress had been getting to him before now. But the sight of another Turk just going ahead and taking care of something for him was such a relief to Reno right now. It wasn't just him and Tseng against the odds now and that felt good.

* * *

><p>"You know, Rude, I could just about kiss you." Reno told him as Rude finished writing down a few notes after he'd handed Irving over to some troopers outside the apartment building.<p>

Rude looked up and raised an eyebrow at his new partner. "I'd rather you didn't."

Reno just shrugged. "To each his own, I guess. You know, neither me or Tseng might say it, but we're glad you're here," Reno told him. "And I'm especially glad you're you instead of well," Reno wanted to say 'someone like Arkette' but he doubted Rude would understand. He looked pretty confused as it was. "Well, someone else."

"Uh, thanks. Should we go to the tower for the interrogation?"

"Let's."

* * *

><p>The interrogation didn't go smoothly. Reno was good at getting to people, at drawing out information either with fast talking, charm or threat, but the simple fact was that Irving really didn't seem to know all that much to begin with.<p>

He'd been hired by someone else for the job, a person he never actually met in the flesh and paid in cash for the work. The whole transaction had been instigated by phone to a number that seemed to no longer exist and registered under a name for a person who didn't seem to be real. The actual goods and money had been a series of drop offs at random public locations, too, with no city surveillance present.

For Reno this was the first real clue he had as to what he was up against. These were not common criminals; they were too picky about what they stole to be in it purely for the money. But the whole set up was very professional, very smooth and Reno still couldn't figure out what they were really after.

"I mean, obviously they were after Soldier weaponry, but realistically, Soldier weapons are just fancy pieces of metal, right? They have no special use other than 'stick the pointy end into the soft fleshy bit'." Reno mentioned to Rude after the nowhere interrogation. "I can't work out why what they stole was worth going through the hassle they did in order to get it."

Rude pondered the problem for a few moments before motioning for Reno to follow him. He led Reno back up to Weapons Development and over to Maggie's desk. She looked up at the pair with a bright smile that quickly faded when the she took in their expressions.

"I assume this means you haven't cracked the case yet."

"Did my glum expression tip you off, or the fact that you haven't got all your stuff back yet?" Reno snapped. He didn't like being stuck on something, not being able to figure things out. When things eluded him, it made him cranky.

"Eat me, Reno," Maggie replied pleasantly.

"I was wondering if you might be able to help," Rude asked in a much more solicitous tone. "We were wondering why the weapons might have been stolen in the first place."

"Yeah, they're just swords, right?" Reno cut in. "Pointy end, blunt end and just a lot of metal in between. So why go to so much trouble for something you can get from the local slum weapons dealer?"

Maggie frowned. "I'll forgive you this time for comparing my work to any old bit of metal because I know you're just being an asshole because of your own impotence."

"Who're you calling impotent?"

Maggie sighed. "Impotence at the situation, Reno. Look, the weapons we make here are special because they have hardened mako woven through the blades."

"You mean materia?" Rude asked in surprise.

"No, not materia generally. The hardened mako we primarily use doesn't work like materia which has special properties to do certain things. Fire material, for instance. None of the hardened mako we produce has an effect like that."

"I would think that would make the blade more brittle," Rude told her.

Maggie looked a little surprised at Rude's observation and smiled in response. "Normally, yes it would. Even hardened mako isn't as strong as steel or mithril unless it has a regular current running through it."

"You've lost me, Mags," Reno admitted.

"You never think about the little details, do you, Reno? Look, Shinra is a power company that uses mako to produce electricity. Mako itself is already sort of electrified in a way when it is first drawn out of the earth and the reactors work to draw out this natural energy and divert it to the power stations for public consumption. Well, that's an oversimplified way of saying it; you'd have to ask someone in Urban Development if you wanted the full story. But even mako that has lost its own charge is able to keep and hold a charge from another source. People, for instance, have a constant flow of electric impulses running through our bodies, it's how we function. The chemical and physical dynamics of mako are very similar to that in our cells on an atomic level so it is possible for these two things, people and mako, to pass a charge from one to the next. The mako can absorb part of our own internal electrical charge and hold it."

"I understood everything before 'Look'," Reno told her.

But Rude didn't look quite so perplexed. "Mako infusions," Rude said with more than a little understanding.

Maggie smiled widely and nodded. "Exactly!"

Reno sighed. "Once more for the common people, please."

"Mako is a powerful electrical conductor. Our bodies are also electrical conductors. When you infuse a person with mako it heightens that person body's ability to conduct electricity. Electrical signals passing through our bodies makes our bodies function. Having mako infused into the cells in your body makes those signals pass more quickly and efficiently." Rude explained a little more simply.

"Okay, I think I get that part. But what does this have to do with the weapons?" Reno asked Maggie this time.

"Mako can also store its own charge of electricity drawn out of any number of sources which include natural living matter. People for instance that hold a piece of materia, power that materia with their own energy and release that charge in the form of fire or lighting or whatever. Materia without a function -like hardened mako -just hold the charge and pass that charge through to any other substance it comes into contact with such as like steel. The charge inside the hardened mako makes the mako and therefore the sword practically unbreakable. If we want to we can imbue the mako with materia like properties and give the weapon something extra like a fire element. We try not to because it can become unstable."

"Alright, your weapons are good. But I'm guessing from the speech about infusing people there's a connection I'm missing."

"Well, people who have been infused with mako are the only ones that have a strong enough electrical current in their bodies to utilize the weapon with any sort of efficiency. Any regular person can charge a naked piece of materia or hardened mako in the palm of their hand, but only people who are infused with mako in their bodies can charge the mako in the weapons. It's a mutual mako conductive thing."

"So these weapons would be just like any old weapon to a regular person?"

Maggie glared at him.

"Like any other masterfully crafted art piece," Reno amended.

"Well, yeah." Maggie affirmed. "Actually they'd be more brittle than most, as Rude guessed before. These particular weapons are specially developed for Soldiers for a reason. Unless you have the same kinds of mako levels in your system as a Soldier does you might as well buy or steal something just as well made but without the mako in it."

And with that the connection between the missing Soldiers and the missing weapons came together. Somebody out there was recruiting Shinra Soldiers and wanting to arm them with the best of the best as well. All in all, the thought was pretty unsettling.

"You might have just told us that in the first place." Reno said with a frown.

Rude didn't seem to agree though. "Pretty interesting." He said, which earned him a smile from Maggie.

"Well Rude," Reno said after a careful moment of consideration, "I think our separate investigations just became one and the same."

* * *

><p>Reno made his report to Tseng when they met up for training later that evening, after Rude had gone home. He also made his report about how Rude was handling his first investigation.<p>

Today the training was general weapon training. Reno had found out that the annoying thing about the Turks is that they had to be not only good fighters, but they had to be flexible. They couldn't lose a fight just because they didn't happen to have their weapon of choice with them at the time. The pair were currently training with staves.

"You really think he doesn't need supervision any longer?" Tseng asked dubiously.

"Hey, he's the golden recruit isn't he? How can it surprise you that he doesn't need me in order to do his job anymore?"

Tseng stopped trying to hit Reno with his staff for a moment and Reno took the opportunity to lean on his, apparently casually but red faced and breathing a little hard all the same. He already had a large bruise starting to appear on his upper arm from a blow at the beginning of the session. But Tseng was still impressed, Reno had picked up the basics pretty quickly and after only a couple of months was managing to keep Tseng on his toes.

"I wish you'd stop calling him that. Yes, he's had a lot of training for the job, yes, he's probably more familiar with Turk and Shinra procedures than you are. But he was not a natural and it took a lot of training for him to get to the level that he is at. You are a natural. You have almost caught up to him in most areas already in a much shorter time."

The unexpected compliment made Reno look a little unsure and surprised at the same time. "He's a lot smarter than I am and I thought you said Rude didn't need this training 'cause he was already better at this stuff too."

"This is true about our after work sessions, yes," Tseng conceded. "Technically he is better. His aim is almost perfect, he can use quite a variety of weapons with varying degrees of proficiency and is deadly at unarmed combat. He also follows orders and doesn't give me any lip," Tseng added with a meaningful look.

Reno grinned. "How boring for you."

"But," Tseng continued interrupting him, "and I've told you this before, you can do better. You're almost as good as him now fighting wise and you're only getting better. Your grasp of tactics, thinking on your feet and ability to learn new things is well above average. Except with your aim with a gun that is. Plus you have had a crash course in Turk fieldwork that has made you step up and learn fast. You never had the luxury of being eased into the position but you've handled it better than I ever hoped to expect."

"Okay, I get it, I'm great. So why are we still here every night training if I'm so awesome?"

Tseng smiled. "I said, _almost_ as good. I think your ego has selective hearing. And I've explained this to you before. As my second you have the dubious honor of having to be that little bit better."

"Swell. But if you're done stroking me can we deal with this supervisor situation?"

"I trust this isn't because you are finding the task not to your liking."

"Well I won't lie, it is really boring. But that's just my point. I have nothing to do because anything I can think of he's already doing. I mean sure, he doesn't know how to ferret out information from the right people just yet but that's just because he isn't from Midgar and doesn't know the ropes yet like you and I do."

"I don't think anyone knows the Midgar underbelly quite like you do Reno." Tseng told him with meaningful distaste.

"Don't give me that. That underbelly is my people after all. But that's not really a problem, either because if it comes to talking to Midgar's devious unwashed I can always help him out just like I do with you. That's what we in the biz like to call _specialization_." Reno told him in a mocking tone.

"The biz huh? You know, sometimes I think you just enjoy listening to yourself talk."

"Look Tseng, I know that this is your new regime or whatever and you're trying to make it the best and shiniest you possibly can but expecting your Turks to be self sufficient champions unto themselves is unreasonable. It would take me twenty years to teach Rude about the seedier side of Midgar in the way I know it because that's how long it took me to learn. A cohesive and powerful group relies on each other's strengths to help them out. If you try and teach everyone everything you're going to have a group of individuals who are relatively good on their own but not great at any one particular thing. Rude is good at taking orders and hitting people and not so good at problem solving and talking. But that's what you have me for and vice versa. There are just some things neither of us will ever be good at but some things we will excel at and the trick is just how to use and develop those specialties in your favor rather than trying to get us to do everything on our own. The old Turks never used to work that way and I wonder why you're so keen to push against it."

"But that's just it," Tseng told him apparently not happy with his subordinate's dressing down. "We can't function like the Turks have previously because we always used to have partners to rely on. There may be three of us now but that's still two down from the bare minimum the Turks have always run at. You need to be self sufficient because you won't have me there watching your back anymore and I don't want anything to happen to you."

Tseng shut his mouth as soon as the words had escaped. He hadn't realized what he was going to say until he'd said it and now he wished he hadn't.

The look on Reno's face pretty much said it all. First he looked a little confused but then as the words sank in he looked surprised, then after that he grinned smugly.

"You _are_ worried about me."

"I _really_ dislike you, Reno," Tseng muttered.

"Yeah but you're still worried about me. That's it isn't it? You're worried you're going to lose more Turks because we aren't up to scratch. Tseng, I hate to be the one to break this to you, and really you should have worked this one out for yourself a long time ago, but the kind of work we do isn't the safest ever job in the world. Odds are you're going to lose more than one Turk on your watch. And it might be because we didn't have the proper training necessary to fight off our twenty armed attackers with a mop handle but it could well turn out that one of us was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and the other person just got a lucky shot in. Teaching us the meaning of life as a Turk and trying to make us into superheroes is not going to make us bulletproof. And I'll be honest, the Turk you end up losing will probably be me but not because I wasn't trained enough. Let's be honest, it'll be because sometimes I can be rash, foolhardy and a complete idiot. I understand this, it's part of who I am. But it's not something that can be trained out of me, either. No matter how many ways and with how many things you teach me to hit my enemy with, it's just because I'm a bit of a fuckup."

"I won't disagree with you there. Is this is your way of telling me that I shouldn't be riding you so much and that you want to stop training?"

"I didn't say that," Reno replied. "If we could cut back down to maybe two or three nights a week and the amount of weapons you want to train me with again that would be appreciated. I'd like to get at least six or seven hours of sleep most nights. But I'll stick with the core training at least. Like you said, I'm not brilliant yet but I'm not against being so one day. Besides, might not be me that kicks it first, could be you and then I would have to be Turk Leader."

"That's a horrifying thought."

Reno smiled. "Isn't it just?"

"Fine, I concede you that point. I will also think about what you've told me about not pushing what I can't change. But how did that bear on what you were telling me about Rude?"

"Rude is a good investigator, he doesn't need me along anymore. You know, he has the most interesting way of interrogating people. He just stands there silently and looks at 'em till they get so nervous they spill. How they even know where he's looking with those shades he wears is a mystery. It's quite fascinating to watch actually."

"You had a point there somewhere?"

"Right, I do. Look if Rude needs information that might lead him into the slums I'm happy to help. But for the meantime he's doing just fine on his own. And that will free me up to look into this Soldier thing."

"I thought you said the investigation looked to be one and the same?"

"Same people we're looking for but two different angles to look at it with. We'll do better if we work separately on these angles then pool the information at the end of the day."

"Okay, I'll trust your judgment."

"Wow, did that hurt your jaw to say that?" Reno asked with some surprise.

"A little."

TBC

* * *

><p><em>Notes: Hmm, methinks I see more plot sneaking in. Sorry if my mako ideas are a little dumb, I hope it makes enough sense to sounds good if nothing else.<em>

_A little side note to Deepclaw here: I hope you enjoyed what little I wrote about the tower raid. It wasn't going to be a big part at all until you expressed interest in what would happen so I hope the anticipation lived up to what you eventually got __J_

_This was a pretty chunky chapter guys and it gave me a bit of trouble so please show the love._

_AF_


	8. How To Lose A Friend In 10 Days

**Nothing To Say**

**Chapter 8**

**How To Lose A Friend In 10 Days.**

It had been three days and the investigation had more or less stalled. They now knew that the Soldier weapons had been taken for use by people with mako infusions. They also knew that these infused people were probably Soldiers created by Shinra for use in their army. As far as the Turks knew at the time, they had foiled the first two Soldier deserters from joining their new employers, but the idea that not all was well nagged at Reno. And then Reno nagged at Rude until the pair of them forced themselves to take a look at the Soldier files.

Reno and Rude sat at their separate desks with a pile of files each and read through the fascinating history of Shinra Soldiers. They had been at it for hours; even one single year of files was a huge amount to read through.

Soldier turn over, especially in the lower ranks, was pretty surprising, even for Reno. They weren't at war at the moment, since the war with Wutai had ended a few years ago. But Shinra still managed to find enemies everywhere and Soldiers always tended to be the first and last line of defense against any powerful foes. Or anyone who even looked at Shinra in the slightest wrong way.

Shinra Soldiers died or burnt out. Some even burnt out before they got to the fighting. Some didn't make it through basic training; some didn't take to the mako they received in either Third or Second Class. No matter what their fate, meticulous files of each Soldier's combat, medical and mental records were kept and they were all stored in the Shinra achieves.

"This is morbid," Reno said, rubbing his eyes and leaning back in his chair. They had reading for over three hours.

"Hm," Rude replied, not looking up from his work.

"You don't agree?"

"I do."

Reno yawned. "And on top of being completely depressed by reading this memorial of past and future dead, I think I'm starting to go mad. I'm seeing patterns where I know patterns can't exist."

Rude looked up then. "Patterns?"

"Reno," Tseng interrupted. He was leaning against the doorframe in the entry to his office, sipping a coffee. He looked like he'd been there for a little while without the distracted pair noticing. "Just speak your mind."

"It's nothing, really."

"Pretend for a second that I am your boss and I am giving you an order. Tell me what you are thinking."

"You know I usually charge double for fantasy requests."

"Reno."

"Alright, alright, sheesh!" Reno said, giving in. "But I already told you, it's nothing concrete. I just noticed that some of the reports of the MIA Soldiers for the last year or so have been a little…odd."

"I noticed that too," Rude said putting down the file he had been reading and crossing his arms. "Only a few, but the reports are very vague."

Reno shot Rude a surprised look, not expecting to get his distant theory backed up. "I ran across a man named Robinson, a Soldier Second Class who simply went out on a mission to the North Inslands and just never came back. Actually, according to the Shinra outpost he was supposed to check in with, he never even reached his destination. Even the four Troopers that accompanied him were ever heard of again. He had a trainee with him too, same story."

"Ward," Rude spoke up. "I have his file here."

"You said there was a pattern," Tseng prompted.

"Well there are three others I came across with a similar disappearing act. Sent on a mission out of Midgar, never arrived, never came back. It's a bit odd, even for Soldiers. Bodies were never recovered either, so they aren't officially dead, just missing."

"I found two like that not including Ward," Rude put in.

"But what about Owen and Rubin?" Tseng asked. "They disappeared on duty and we had to fetch them in the city."

"I checked, Owen had been pulled off the field roster due to erratic behavior. If he'd been allowed out on missions, odds are he would have disappeared just like the rest. I bet the only reason we got the call about it was because he was being closely watched."

"You must have something else to back this up."

"Well a lot of the missing Soldiers had something in common. I wouldn't say they were as openly dissatisfied as Owen was, but there are small things in their records to show they weren't as happy in their roles as Shinra dogs as they're meant to be. Small things mostly, but it stuck in my mind after I saw how they went missing."

"So if this pattern of yours proves true, we might have as many as seven Soldiers taken that we weren't previously aware of." Tseng summed up.

"Well, yeah. But remember this theory I just pulled out of my ass. Who knows, Soldiers go missing all the time, right? Just 'cause these ones are similar doesn't mean I'm right."

Tseng gave him a half smile. "If you are right, would this be good news or bad news?"

"Bad." Reno responded with a resigned sigh.

"Exactly. Leave this for now, Reno you have a meeting, I believe. Rude, security called about those tapes so you'd better go see them."

"Fine."

Tseng disappeared back into his office and Reno got to his feet. Rude gave him an inquiring glance.

"He means I'm probably right," Reno explained. "I usually am when it's bad news."

* * *

><p>"So have you found out any more about those Soldiers?"<p>

Rankin shrugged as though it were no big deal. "Nah."

Reno stared at him.

"Don't look at me like I just broke yer heart, Reno. It's not that we didn't try, just seems that there's nothing really to find. I think you're barking up the wrong tree here if you think anything really sinister is going on."

Reno's lunch appointment in their regular bar meeting area was not going according to plan. So Reno continued with the shocked expression for a little while longer before shrugging nonchalantly. "Okay. Thanks for checking, I appreciate it. I organized payment for you; Rufus has already signed off on it."

This time it was Rankin's turn to give Reno a look. "Don't feed me the guilt trip, you're too young to try that shit on an old pro like me."

"What shit? No guilt here, Rankin. Your boys did the legwork, they ought to get paid for it. I know what it can be like to do a job only to have the client refuse payment at the last second."

Rankin chewed that over for a moment before smiling. "Well if you insist, I won't say no."

"There's the mercenary spirit! By the way, I've got nothing new for you. Apparently we gotta start being a little more self-reliant now. But if you hear anything of interest, let me know. There's still gil in good information if you happen across any."

"I'll keep that in mind. Cheers, Reno."

"Yeah, later."

* * *

><p>"My meeting with Rankin didn't go exactly how I hoped it would," Reno began carefully in the Turks meeting the following morning.<p>

"No new information?"

"Nothing he reported to me, but I did get some information out of the meeting. All my speculation though, nothing more."

Tseng said, "By all means, speculate."

Reno winced a little. "I think the reason Rankin didn't find out anything was because he's working with them."

"What, do you think he betrayed you?"

"Betrayed is such a _strong_ word," Reno said, backtracking a little. "In Rankin's defense he's not exclusively a Shinra informant. His whole business thrives on keeping all sides not doing too much damage to each other to keep some sort of equilibrium and therefore peace in the city. It's how he earns a living, keeping us all in a position where he can use us."

"How about without the bullshit this time?"

"He's not Shinra anymore, Tseng. He can work with whoever the fuck he wants to. Shinra is the biggest baddest dog of the bunch of dogs he works with, so more often than not, he's gonna be working for the other guy, whoever that might be at any particular time."

Tseng sighed and sat back. "I would have preferred better news than this. Rankin represents no small force these days. But it also means that the core group must be relatively small if they are relying on Rankin to help out."

"Yeah, I got that impression too. I also get the impression that they're gonna try again. I had a Soldier asking me questions the other day about those guys we have in lock up. I could be wrong, but I think he's been approached."

"Can you be certain?"

"I could be if I was able to snoop around Soldier for a little while. But I don't want to spook this guy more than I already have by asking him more questions so I was thinking of using some bait actually. I need more information on these guys and all my contacts aren't talking no matter how much gil I wave at them or how much I threaten to slice their ears off. Do you know how rare that is? The Soldiers aren't going to talk to us, not to give us anything concrete anyway. I was thinking of planting someone in their ranks."

"You can't just plant a Soldier Second Class and expect the others not to notice. You need to be in Soldier for years before you achieve that rank at the very least."

"It's not uncommon in the past for Soldier and the Turks to trade people, you should know that. You were in Soldier once and I remember you telling me about another Turk that was headhunted by Soldier just because Hojo wanted him in the program. He went almost straight into second class. I imagine a well trained Turk should be able to pass the requirements for Second Class to become eligible," Reno said, with a meaningful glance at Rude.

Rude didn't miss Reno's look and neither did Tseng. But Tseng was already shaking his head.

"It won't work. Special circumstances sure, but Rude is a new Turk. We might say to them that he wasn't Turk material and better suited to Soldier but they won't let him do the tests for Second. He'd be lucky to make Third with no prior training. He's not had any experience with Soldier or the Turks. They'll wonder why we didn't just transfer him back to the Trooper division or get them to take him as a Soldier candidate. And besides, Seconds need to be infused already…" Tseng's voice trailed there for a little while before he continued. "But you know, Reno, there is someone else that might make a better impression. If I said that you were no longer needed by the Turks they might be interested. Especially if we let the right people know what's really going on."

Clearly, this had not been in any part of Reno's plan. "You're fucking with me, right?"

"It was your idea."

"Not for me to do it! Do I look like Soldier material to you? Besides it'll look too conspicuous."

"How so? Nobody but the brass know we are investigating Soldier apart from the odd rumor. You are already infused, you're proven in battle and it's no secret we don't really get along most of the time. I don't think it would be too suspicious if I want to get rid of you now that I have a new trained Turk. If they do not know any better, the other Soldiers should accept you."

Reno frowned. "You say that like the thought had already crossed your mind. But like I said, I don't really look the part."

"You're generalizing. Soldiers aren't all large and intimidating. You've had some training with a sword, we could work on that further."

Reno seemed to be trying to think of another argument but was coming up a little short. His plan had obviously backfired a little and eventually he just said, "Fuck. I'm it, aren't I?"

"If you think this plan has the most chance of success and you've exhausted all possibilities as a Turk then, yes, you are in fact 'it'."

"Why don't we just get an existing Soldier to work for us?" Rude asked speaking up for the first time during the meeting. He'd felt it was an obvious point that the other two had somehow overlooked.

The question was met with a rather awkward silence though.

"Soldier are…suspicious of outside interference."

"The elitist bastards won't help us," Reno translated.

"Yes, they work with us on occasion," Tseng continued, "but they won't spy on their own for our sakes or theirs and as a general rule I wouldn't ask them to. It isn't good if the military side of Shinra started distrusting each other too much. If a Soldier was caught spying on another, they would never trust each other again. They especially don't like the Turks."

"Can you blame them?" Reno put in. "Half the guys there were recruited by Turks who told them it was going to be nothing but steak, riches and glory and then they find out it's more like blood, fighting and pain. There's still glory and that's enough for most. But with people like our friend Owen, they don't understand what they are getting themselves into until they're stamped property of Shinra and told they're in it for life, however short that turns out to be. Can't say _I_ blame them for not liking us much."

Tseng didn't seem to disagree with Reno's point of view. To Rude he added, "A Soldier could be ordered to help us, but it would only sabotage our investigation in the end. He might agree, but he will do nothing to help us and probably not hide the fact of what he's been made to do. No, we need someone we can trust there if we're going to do this. Reno tells me that you're doing well and no longer require supervision. This is good news because if we go ahead with this, you will be taking up Reno's duties in their fullest until the matter is resolved and he is free to return to us."

Rude glanced at Reno with some surprise. He hadn't expected that bit of news just yet but felt pleased all the same.

"I will do my best," Rude assured them both.

"I suppose it's settled then," Reno said sullenly.

"You aren't actually joining Soldier, Reno. And remember this was your idea."

"Yeah, and my ideas are always so peachy aren't they?"

* * *

><p>It took a couple of days, but Tseng managed to call the right people in for a meeting about the situation. Rufus knew of the plan ahead of time and hadn't stopped laughing at Reno whenever the chance presented itself. The other necessary people were finding out for the first time and didn't seem entirely pleased about the plan.<p>

"It will create problems if and when they find out," Lazard told Tseng. "Soldiers tend to be very private people."

"The plan isn't for Reno to be spying on individual Soldiers unless it can't be helped. The main plan is for this group to target him so he can find out information about these people first hand. Introducing someone new into the ranks will give us the opportunity to show him as a prime candidate, based on what we have learned so far from the Soldiers this group has targeted in the past."

The Director of Soldier still didn't seem convinced, but at least he looked a little happier about the situation.

"You will not be interfering with my First Classes?" Hojo asked Tseng.

"No, Sir. They do not seem to be targets for obvious reasons. Reno's interaction with them will be very minimal."

"Will this impact with my work?"

"He will have to be seen to have the same treatments as the others. The only thing I ask is your cooperation with this."

"Isn't there anyone else?" Heidaggar asked bluntly. "I don't trust that kid much."

"Reno is," Tseng wanted to say 'dedicated', but couldn't force the word out in fear of blatantly lying. Instead he settled for, "dogged. He will not give up until this is resolved. He is one of the most resourceful Turks I've ever worked with."

"If he fucks up, it's on you, Tseng."

"Yes, Sir."

"I question depleting the Turk's ranks for something like this. You were overworked with only two Turks in the past, gaining a third only to bring the number back down to two again concerns me." Rufus told him.

"In the past few weeks we have managed to catch up on our work quite well. We will manage with two Turks for the time being. Having three Turks at least allows us to try things like this, which was impossible before."

Tseng left the meeting with the idea that while not everyone was happy with the plan, at least they saw the necessity of it and were going along with it despite their issues.

Meanwhile, Tseng and Reno had been doing their best this past week to seem like they were about to kill each other, performing in the most public setting that presented itself to them on a near daily basis. Tseng had been a little discouraged actually about how easy it had been. They started the fights with the intention of putting on a show to explain Reno's sudden departure from the Turks, but the arguments usually escalated too easily for it to be all show and at the end of every day the pair were left feeling like they weren't sure whether they really hated each other or if they were just really good at putting on a act. Tseng had gone so far as to pull his gun on Reno at one point one day only to have Rude take the weapon off him. It had not been part of the plan and the look on Reno's face had been sobering to say the least. They had barely spoken for the rest of the day.

Tseng decided to take a day off from the regular when Reno came into the office an hour and a half late and glared at him.

"What now?" Tseng asked.

"My fucking car died on the M1 this morning, in the fast lane I might add, which I'm pretty pissed about already so don't even start with me today, Tseng, 'cause I swear I'll fucking kill you this time."

"I told you that car was a piece of shit but if you ever…" Tseng stopped himself when he noticed Reno's face go a little red from anger.

When Tseng took a deep breath to calm himself Reno stopped glaring for a moment, probably realising for the first time what he was doing. He'd picked a fight with no audience to impress and he seemed to grasp what Tseng had only moments before.

"Right, that wasn't cool was it?" Reno asked eventually.

Rude, who had watched the whole thing between the pair, said, "You two have issues."

"Gee, ya think?" Reno said sarcastically.

"Yes well, before we resort to couples counseling, Lazard wants to see you, Reno, about this assignment of yours. While you are up there I suggest you stop frowning and try to make some new friends. Tonight we have training, don't forget." Tseng informed him.

Meeting with Lazard by himself was a first for Reno. He had been to the directors office only twice before, accompanying Tseng on assignments. Usually anything Soldier related went through Tseng first, but they could get around this odd occurrence of Reno now showing up due to the fact that Tseng had been more or less benched from most fieldwork and Reno was now not merely seen as the new guy (due to Rude's arrival) but properly as Tseng's second.

As he traversed the Soldier floor he got a few looks but not too many. Reno did see a familiar face or two and decided he might as well take Tseng's advice and make nice with the locals.

He deposited himself down across the table from one such familiar face and sighed over-dramatically. "Well, if it isn't Andrew Rogers. Nice digs you got here."

Rogers looked up from his lunch with a surprised look. "Hi Reno, didn't expect to see you here."

"Well my boss is busy and your boss needed to see him about something so here I am, little messenger boy. You'd have thought they'd never heard of the phone."

Drew smiled. Reno couldn't understand it, but Drew seemed to like him for some unfathomable reason. He knew that Drew was struggling with his duties as a Second Class and having a sparing partner in Reno probably endeared Reno to him in some way. Reno hadn't been joking before, more than half the Soldiers in here hated the Turks for various reasons and Drew normally would have been among them being Turk recruited himself. But he always smiled when he saw Reno and had a nice word for him so Reno figured he was just grateful for the help in the gym. He certainly didn't give his sparkling personality any credit, not being a moron.

Drew laughed at his joke even though Reno wasn't sure it merited one and smiled. "Why make themselves work by dialing when they have peons to order around."

"Yeah, tell me about it. I don't know about you but I'm about ready to kill my boss. He's gone mental, I tell you."

"I heard what happened the other day in the lobby. He drew a gun on you, I heard." Drew told him in a slightly hushed voice.

It wasn't a fight that Reno particularly wanted to remember. It had started out as they always did with the intention of spreading the rumor about their mutual dislike of one another but had soon degraded into something a little more meaningful. He had been half sure at the time that Tseng was really going to shoot him from the look on his boss's face. He had never thought their relationship was so bad that Tseng would truly ever want him dead, but the look in his eyes hadn't been for show, he'd been really angry. Perspective gained, Reno had decided that the subject of Wutai, loyalty and family would never be bought up again lest Rude not be around to save him next time.

"Totally bonkers," Reno affirmed trying to shake off that sick feeling he had felt at the time. "At least your boss isn't a mental case."

"Which boss do you mean exactly?" Drew asked with a smile.

It was common knowledge around the Shinra rumor mill that Soldier had two bosses. One was Lazard, Director of Operations in Soldier and the other was General Sephiroth, decorated war hero and definitely the most imposing man Reno had ever met in person. Lazard was their official boss but everyone including all the Soldiers figured that if Sephiroth ever went against his Directors orders the rest of Soldier would follow him. It must have been a rumor that had reached the brass, too, because to Reno's albeit limited knowledge, the General didn't get his orders through Lazard, who was at best an administrator for the department, but took commands from either Heidgar or the President almost exclusively. Whether this was to keep the peace or not Reno wasn't certain. But it did make it seem like the higher ups didn't want to take any chances.

"Hah, good point. But either way, mega scary or not, they seem pretty on the ball. Hey," Reno began brightly as though the thought had just occurred to him, "How do you reckon someone like me would get a transfer to Soldier?"

Not even Drew could apparently hold onto his smile for that one. "You, in Soldier?"

"Sure, why not. Hey, I'm not that crap."

"No of course not. But it _is_ military when all is said and done. You know, taking orders with a nod and a smile, following the regime. That means no drinking, smoking, eating crap or partying."

"Really?" Reno asked, genuinely surprised. He knew that being a Soldier was more than just a job, but he hadn't realised how little these guys were actually able to do. He had just assumed they got days off to unwind just like everyone else. Apparently this was not the case. Still it wasn't as though they were being pushed twenty four/seven either. If there were no missions going all they had to do was training, treatments and downtime. It wasn't like Reno's job where he was pushed almost every minute he was at work to get things done. But Reno didn't like the idea of having his stress relief outlets taken away from him, no matter how temporarily it would turn out to be.

"Geez, do you have to be celibate too?" Reno asked jokingly.

Drew went faintly pink around the ears when Reno asked that question and Reno couldn't hide the shock again.

"You're kidding me right?"

"There's no rule saying a Soldier can't get involved with anyone. But there's hardly a lot of chances. We all live in the barracks together and only really go out on missions. One or two guys have girlfriends out in the city that they visit occasionally, but that's about it really."

"Wow, that sucks," Reno said with feeling. "Still," he continued with forced levity, "Still gotta be better than being a Turk. Where's the glory in that? Basically, we are just overworked glorified building security that go out on the occasional recruitment drive. I'm sick of it, frankly."

"You really want to be in Soldier?" Drew asked.

"It's just a thought. Anyway, I better get going and see the boss. Take it easy Drew."

"Yeah, you too Reno."

Reno had a few more conversations with some of the other friendly familiar people he spotted that ran along a similar way so by the time he eventually showed up in the Director's office he felt some of the Soldiers might not find it so surprising to see him in the uniform one day.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, not even a week went by before Reno got word that his 'transfer' had gone through. By this point Rude was as settled in as he was ever going to get and managing Reno's workload as well as could be expected considering he'd only been in the job now for about a month or so. Tseng and Reno had been off and on arguing loudly in public but in the last couple of days had mutually decided to step it up a little to the point where they were never seen in public together anymore when they weren't arguing or preparing to hit one another. On the last day that Reno was going to be a Turk for a while it did come down to blows while Reno was practicing on the firing range. The fight might have been prearranged, but being hit in the nose by Tseng hadn't.<p>

Reno was just lining up his first shot, the first Tseng had seen him make in quite some time when Tseng walked up behind him and started in at him.

"I don't know what I was thinking, when I thought you could master this very simple thing. I guess I mistook talent for slum rat bravado. Really I should be surprised you can count to ten without using your fingers."

For Reno it had been a bit of a low blow. They never told each other how the arguments would start, but Reno hadn't been expecting Tseng to take a poke at his heritage. Reno might have hated living in the slums before he'd started working for Shinra, but he also took a certain pride in himself and the fact that he hadn't gotten where he had just because daddy knew all the right people. He hated the slums, but he hated the people on the plates even more. He hated their phoniness, their own ideas about what was important in life like having the fastest car when people below their feet were dying of hunger. But what he hated the absolute most was their preconception that because you were born poor you were a lesser being. That because you were poor that also meant you were stupid, too.

Reno turned to Tseng with a dark look. "Some of our daddies couldn't put us into fancy schools that taught Wutaian fighting. Some of us had to use our own wits and brains to survive. So excuse me if my jump on life wasn't as quick as yours Tseng, but at least daddy can be happy that the fancy schooling he paid for helped you destroy your own people."

And just like that, Reno broke his own promise to himself. He'd vowed not to bring up anything like that again but Tseng had touched a particularly sore spot this morning and Reno had really wanted to hurt him back. Badly.

Tseng had hit him, naturally, and then had gotten a hold of himself enough to turn and stalk away. He had been lucky Tseng had not been armed this time. But it was probably unlucky that Reno was.

So with blood pouring out of his nose and his head still ringing, Reno bought his aim up to the boss's slowly retreating back and pulled the trigger.

There were a few people around this morning but all of them had apparently frozen stiff. And when the sound of the gunfire had died down, Tseng could see on the wall in front of him, the shape of his head perfectly framed by nine holes.

Reno was still clutching his gun as he walked past a still Tseng.

"That was nine shots by the way and I only had to use a single finger to count them off, asshole."

Reno apparently had done as promised and improved his aim within the last couple of weeks. If every shot hadn't been perfect, Tseng would have been dead. He briefly wondered whether Reno had known he wouldn't miss, or hadn't known for certain and just done it anyway.

Either way, pulling a gun on your boss was not looked upon very well within Shinra and by lunchtime the whole building had heard about the altercation between the two Turks. Many knew this had been coming for a long time and now were waiting to hear what was going to happen to Reno. When they found out that Reno was being transferred into Soldier a lot of people were surprised. But then some people had also heard that Reno had been asking the Soldiers about joining for a while now, so maybe it wasn't so surprising.

* * *

><p>"<em>Did you hear, Reno almost shot his boss this morning!"<em>

"_What?"_

"_Yeah I know, but we all saw it coming. Those two hate each other, everyone can see that."_

"_They've got that new Turk now, maybe Reno will get canned."_

"_Are you kidding me? Reno saved the Vice President's life twice last year, there's no way they'll fire him now."_

"_Yeah but they're not gonna get rid of Tseng are they? Tseng's like the uber Turk isn't he? Besides he's Reno superior, they can't get rid of him just 'cause Reno shot at him."_

"_They'll have to put Reno somewhere else, there's no way those two can work together anymore, anyone can see that. Maybe they'll put him on Security."_

"_Bit of a step down isn't it?"_

"_I heard he applied for Soldier."_

"_Yeah this buddy of mine in Soldier told me Reno was pretty keen. Doesn't really seem the type, though."_

"_I can't imagine Reno as a Soldier."_

"_He's already been infused, you can tell by his eyes."_

"_Yeah but, Reno? C'mon seriously. I don't know anybody who's less military."_

"_I saw him sparring with Rogers the other day, he's not half bad with a sword. Somebody said he was just helping out Rogers, but I dunno, he looked pretty good with it."_

"_Yeah, but this is Reno right? Didn't he get drunk last month at Marsha's party and go skinny dipping with her secretary in the fountain out in the courtyard of Shinra HQ?"_

"_Maybe he figures Soldier will be good for him."_

"_Seriously, Reno the Turk right? Red hair, talks a lot?"_

"_Makes sense in a way. He might not be your usual Soldier type, but he's already infused, already can handle a sword, why would they waste him and stick him in Security?"_

"_I suppose you're right. Makes sense when you think about it."_

"_Yeah."_

"_Yeah, true."_

"_You guys are nuts."_

* * *

><p>The rumors continued to circulate and Reno got ready to leave the Turks. He made a show of packing up his stuff from the office to take back to his apartment. which would sit vacant while Reno moved himself into the Soldier barracks the following day. Tseng didn't show while he was doing this, but when Reno finally got back to his apartment, he did find Tseng standing out in the hall waiting for him.<p>

He didn't feel much like talking to Tseng at the moment though but apparently Tseng didn't feel the same way.

"We have to talk this out, Reno," Tseng told him as Reno went to brush past him in order to get to his apartment door.

"Can't it wait?"

"No."

Reno rolled his eyes and let himself and Tseng into his apartment. After depositing his stuff on the couch he went to the fridge to grab a beer while Tseng loitered at the doorway to the kitchen. He refused Reno's offer of refreshment.

"All this time we were supposed to be play acting, but I think we both know it went a little beyond that."

"Whatever Tseng, it's over now. Who cares?"

"I do," Tseng told him. "We're friends, I don't want this to stay unresolved."

Reno leant back against his fridge and sipped his beer. "We get on each other's nerves, so what? Okay, so maybe we let the fights get a little personal but that's hardly surprising considering how much we bicker normally. We vented, that's all it was. Think of it as a drastic kind of therapy."

"We tried to kill one another, for real. That's not bickering. We have issues with one another and I think we need to get over that before we can move on."

"Really Tseng, I can't think of any deep seeded issue I have with you. I just get carried away sometimes."

"No you don't. Believe it or not but I think I know you pretty well by now. I think deep down you blame me for your becoming a Turk."

"How do you figure that's a problem?"

"It must be. You don't pursue Soldier recruits like a Turk should because you don't want to coerce people into working for Shinra because that's what you believe happened to you. You keep talking like Rude is your replacement and hinting that I would be better off with him than you. And despite all this, you're unhappy that you think you are not living up to my expectations of you."

"So I'm unhappy being a Turk but pissed at the same time that I'm not a good enough Turk?" Reno said slowly trying to work that out in his head. "You've lost your marbles, Tseng."

"This is your mind we're talking about here; you can't expect it to make sense. From what I understand you've never enjoyed any of the jobs you've had but you enjoy being the best all the same. It's annoying you that I keep pushing you. You don't like feeling worthless even if it's doing something you hate."

"I don't hate being a Turk, that's a bit strong."

"There is a part of you that hates working for Shinra. I can understand that. You enjoy the chase, and the investigations but you don't enjoy hurting or killing people. That I am thankful for, believe me we don't need another Arkette. You have to force yourself to turn off that part of yourself that hates it when you are compelled to do those things and you have excelled at it. You blame me for not caring when you do those things now. That is what I think your real issue is."

Reno frowned for a moment in thought before replying. "Wow, then I must be deeper than I thought. So what's your deal then oh mighty Turk psychologist?"

"Other than you probably being the most annoying and disrespectful person I've ever met?"

"Yeah, apart from that."

"It doesn't matter that it wasn't really your fault Reno, but I lost what I thought was my family starting when you got Hawkly killed. I don't blame you for it, Arkette would have turned on me eventually, but you were there and you are a reminder of what I have lost. If you had not told Dallen about that meeting, he would not have died there that night either."

Reno wasn't happy with the reminder either. "I thought I was doing you both a favor."

"I told you, I don't blame you. You went above and beyond what was expected of you to help me and I know you feel the most guilt about what happened to Dallen. But it's an irrational thing and I can't help it. I just thought I owed it to you to tell you."

"I wish I could say I appreciated it. So, how do we fix this?"

"I don't think we do, we just learn to deal with it. You are the best recruit I've ever trained, Reno, and I doubt I will ever stop needing you here in Midgar. You will either have to live with that or I will have to live with not having you around anymore. If you wanted you could make this transfer out of the Turks permanent. Don't give me that look, I don't mean you remain a Soldier forever, but you could be moved to Junon so at least you could see Tarran. However, my own problems are easily solved. If we stop trying to kill each other and get along more often I think I can get used to the idea of having a new family."

Tseng wasn't usually one for the deep and meaningful touchy feely moments and Reno had to appreciate how much effort it took Tseng to open up like this. After all, he wasn't far wrong. Part of his frustration with Tseng had been the workload but the other part had been his general feeling of impotence. He had been shoved into something he hadn't been prepared for and knew next to nothing about and barely making it through. He wasn't used to feeling out of his depth and Tseng had done nothing but ride him about training and being better than he was. Tseng must have been feeling this lately and had been complimenting him more often on his progress but he still felt out of his depth and he still had Tseng wanting him to be better, stronger, smarter and all that. It was very frustrating for Reno. And to top it all of he was becoming someone he used to hate, someone who killed, hurt and had no conscience to speak of. But he still strove to be better at it, better at this job where he was doing these things all because Tseng had needed his help. He could understand what Tseng meant about irrational blame, he felt it a little himself.

"I think I can live with it, if you can. But know that I'll never stop trying to annoy you. You can't take all my favourite hobbies off me."

Tseng smiled a little at that. "I think it would be creepy if you were ever too nice to me. Okay, agreed. But also know that I will never stop pushing you to be better if I think you can be. Just try to think of it as encouragement rather than because I think you're not already good at something."

"Agreed."

The pair stood in silence for a few moments either watching the floor or each other. It was kind of awkward after having that big talk about their feelings. Eventually Reno just had to say something to break it.

"So, do we have to like hug now or something?"

"No."

"Good."

They stood in Reno's kitchen for a little longer in silence before Reno spoke up again. "So, feel like helping me celebrate my last few hours of freedom? I hear that in Soldier I'm not even going to be able to fart without prior permission."

Tseng grinned at him. "You're not far wrong."

"Drew told me that I'll have to give up smoking, drinking, my favorite foods and quite possibly sex too. I plan to get in as much of that as I can tonight before I become a monk tomorrow."

"And you think I can help with this." Tseng asked dubiously.

"Well, we can forgo the sex if you prefer but we haven't been out bar hopping together since Arkette died. We should go out and get really wasted."

"Oh yes, and suppose someone from Shinra saw us? We're not supposed to be friends Reno. And besides, your kind of fun doesn't really thrill me."

"Such a spoilsport. Fine have a couple of drinks with me here and then I'll go out and have fun and you can go home to your book and sad violin music."

Tseng thought about it for a moment before deciding that a couple of drinks couldn't hurt. "Alright, but just a few."

* * *

><p><em>Notes: Wow, so that was a long chapter. I made you all wait a little longer than usual for this one so think of it as a gift for all being so patient. And lookee here plot! I'm expected a myriad of different reactions to my little chapter not the least of which my plan to make Reno a temporary Soldier. Nuts huh? Don't ask me why it just tickled my fancy and Reno is such a good character to throw into unusual situations like this. I bet none of you saw this coming though eh? And it was such a long chapter please continue to show me the love and review.<em>

_Hugs,_

_AF_


	9. Reno's New Digs

**Nothing To Say**

**Chapter 9**

**Reno's New Digs.**

Rude found Tseng the next morning with his head down on his desk and the shades in his office drawn. For the first time Tseng didn't appear to know Rude was there and Rude had to say 'Good morning' to him before he got a bit of a groan as a response.

"Big night, Sir?" Rude inquired sitting down in one of the visitor's chairs.

Tseng looked a little green and very tired. He yawned and then put a hand to his head as though the act had pained him. Seeing Tseng like this was a little disconcerting. He didn't even know his boss drank at all, let alone came to work hung over. Dallen had often commented that Tseng apparently didn't know how to live to excess. It was something Dallen thought of as a major character flaw.

"A word of advice, Rude. If Reno ever invites you to have a few quiet drinks with him, just say no. I may have drunk my own weight in whiskey last night."

Rude went so far as to smile a little at that. He didn't quite understand why, but it was good to see that the pair had apparently patched things up a little.

"Any special orders for the day, Sir?"

"Keep on with the investigation, I'll let you know if anything comes up."

"Yes, Sir. Sir, how do you think Reno is coping this morning?"

"He's starting his Solider training today is and probably at least a little hungover too. If I didn't feel so wretched this morning I would probably be feeling very sorry for him about now."

* * *

><p>As it turned out, Reno wasn't as hungover as his boss; with his drinking habits he could hold his booze better. However when he first walked onto the Solider floor with his duffle slung over his Solider all dressed up in his brand new blue Solider Third Class uniform, he still felt kind of sick.<p>

Reno didn't like his new uniform. He didn't really like uniforms in general but this one was even worse than what he had to wear as a Turk. He'd been able to come to some sort of agreement with that uniform so he could at least be comfortable in the thing - like getting a loose shirt, only half-heartedly wearing his tie if he ever bothered to remember it at all, and skipping most of the underwear. It also helped you to get used to something when you wore it and hardly anything else for like nine months straight. But there was no way to improve the Solider uniform other than by burning it.

Some Soldiers got into the habit of only wearing the smallest hints of their uniforms but they were mainly tried and tested First Classes. Reno was told in no uncertain terms that he was to wear the regular uniform with little to no alteration for his entire stint in Solider. He could see the wisdom of that in a way, wearing the same thing as everyone else was going to make him seem more like one of the boys than if he pimped his uniform to a more individual style. But he still didn't have to like it.

The pants weren't too bad because they were at least comfortable, being sort of roomy, but Reno wasn't sure about the fashion they had in mind. He managed at least to wear his old boots which were black and basically indistinguishable from the Shinra issue boots the others wore. Practically his entire problem with the outfit was the sleeveless knit shirt thing. Thanks to Tseng's strict training and the mass amount of physical activity Reno had done in the past year he didn't look like the weed dressed up as a tree, as he had initially feared, but the thing was practically skintight and sort of uncomfortable because of it. After that the armor became more of a personal tastes and needs type of thing. Well it would once he got to Second Class.

Technically he wasn't there yet and would have to prove himself on a job before he made the cut. It was a foregone conclusion that Reno would make it, Tseng having explained this part of their plan to the Director already, but he still had to make it look believable which would be more difficult. Tseng had initially given him lessons with a sword because ,he was trying to teach Reno the basics of just about every kind of mundane weapon there was but also because Tseng had felt it would give Reno a kind of focus that most other weapons lacked.

It had certainly given him the focus during fighting that only can be induced against a skilled opponent with a sharp metal sword. Reno he had to admit it had made him not as impulsive or foolhardy when it came to his general fighting style. But he hadn't exactly been trained with this sort of thing in mind. Lately he'd been trying to bone up on his skills and he was pretty confident he could hold his own against the average sword wielder but these were trained professionals who did little other than honing their already impressive sword techniques. Reno supposed he had the edge there in some way, unlike the average Solider he could continue to fight (perhaps even better than before) even without a weapon. But that wasn't the point when you were trying to win over a group that loved their steel so much.

With a certain amount of pulling at his uniform Reno arrived onto the Solider floor that morning, duffle over one arm and a big smile that only the most observant person might notice didn't quite reach his eyes. As he expected he got eyed by almost every Solider on the floor as he made his way toward the Director's meeting room. Not one person came over to talk to him or changed expression as he passed.

Still, it could have been worse. Due to Reno's complete distaste at recruiting Soldiers he'd only managed so far to get three uniforms filled for the company, and those three had been the keenest of the keen to join up. Reno could not have talked them out of it had he tried, which he had. So there were no major death stares of those he had personally talked into joining against their better judgment; instead he was met with silence and vague indifference. Really, it was better than he had expected.

Lazard made Reno wait while he finished the tail end of a briefing with another Soldier and waited even longer until that Solider had left the room and closed the door behind him.

"I still don't like this," Lazard admitted to Reno when he first got a look at him in the Blue Third Class uniform. "I want you to know that if the others find out about this I'm going to act oblivious. It would be better to seem duped than a co conspirator."

"Yeah, I get it. But you gotta understand that this is happening to stop your Soldiers going missing, ya know. We could have sat back and done nothing just as easily and it wouldn't be any skin off our noses."

Lazard smiled. "That isn't exactly true is it? You still rely on us as much as we do on you. You must admit it's nice to call in the muscle now and again."

"Well if I can pass as the muscle these days I'm not sure what you're bragging about. Besides, you have _seen_our new Turk right?" Lazard had a point, but Reno saw no reason to admit it.

"I was of the opinion that I might have to fudge your way into Second Class. Are you trying to tell me you no longer require my assistance?"

Reno's look was best described as sour. "I wouldn't go that far. Look, I'm about as happy with this arrangement as you are. The sooner we can get this wrapped up, the better for all, I say."

At least the Director looked pleased they agreed on something.

He then went on to the various rules and regulations Reno would need to adhere to while pretending to be a Solider but Reno had heard most of it before. However, when he got to the bit about Reno's diet, Reno had to stop him.

"Wait, wait, wait. No alcohol and no meat? Are you shitting me?"

Lazard gave Reno a smug smile. "No I am not shitting you. And all I said was no red meat. Fish is allowed of course but most red meat we get in Midgar is unsuitable. And of course you can't drink, I'm sure you knew that coming in."

"Yeah, but just because I'm play acting doesn't mean I've actually joined. And what about protein?"

"Soldiers follow a strict regiment of vitamins and boosters that make up for anything lacking in the diet and then some. And just because you aren't really joining doesn't mean you don't have to follow the rules. The Soldiers for the most part have a common eating area and I've been told that you must blend in. Also you will be required occasionally to see Professor Hojo for 'treatments'. Don't look so scared Reno, this has been cleared beforehand. It will seem to the others that you are receiving the same treatments as the rest of the men but the Professor will probably just give you a physical just see how you're doing and that is all. First, though, he will need to check the levels of mako in your blood. Of course most people can tell you've been infused if they look closely enough, but as a Solider your eyes must practically glow. It might be necessary to give you another dose just so you look the part. Not to mention it might help you in your test."

Reno didn't like the sound of being dosed with even more mako, but he could see the point. And besides, in the end it would only make him stronger. And yeah, anything to give him the edge in the upcoming test to graduate to Second Class would be helpful. Sure, wheels would be greased, but he still had to make it look good, Solider or no. If that group was in fact reading through the Shinra files, Reno needed to get better than just a passing grade. He had to make them want him and this would be the best opportunity for that.

"I need to bring one of the First Classes in on this. I've talked it over with Tseng and he agrees. We can't have one of them put his all into sponsoring you and then find out you aren't even a real candidate. At the very least he might be able to cover for you if things start to go south."

Reno had forgotten about that. Every Second Class had a First Class sponsor, sort of like they did in the Turks. However, unlike the Turks, because there weren't enough First Classes to go around they generally took on multiple students at a time. Reno didn't know a lot of the First Classes very well and didn't like the news one little bit. He sure as hell didn't want Tseng breathing down his neck.

"Hojo will not let this interfere with certain First Classes and I agree with him. So your sponsor will not be any of the Primary Subjects, but I think I prefer if Malcolm dealt with this anyway."

Truth be told, Reno had been waiting for bad news, but Malcolm wasn't really bad news. Malcolm had actually started off his Shinra career as a Turk many years before Reno's time and had been hustled straight back out again because he had been badly injured and infused just like Reno had been. But unlike Reno's infusion Malcolm's had gone badly and Hojo had apparently solved his near death by pumping him full of Jenova cells. Reno was still pretty new to the whole Jenova thing, but he got the impression that it was something he really, really didn't want in his body. He'd heard it mutated cells and caused all sorts of bodily changes that strengthened the body and made the Soldiers really hard to kill. Which all sounded good except for the part where it was still in experimental stages and oh, the cells came from a being that wasn't in any way human. Now while Reno didn't consider himself speciesist, he just didn't want alien cells infused into his body, that's all. Especially untested ones. Plus, the moment you had any of that shit put into your body it was like you had just been genetically stamped as Shinra property. Literally. Which was what happened to Malcolm. He could no longer be a Turk after that and transferring to Solider had probably been the lesser of a lot of future experimental evils at the time.

Why Hojo had bothered at all and not just let the man die was a bit of a mystery, since Malcolm was just a Turk in his eyes. And Reno had to wonder whether there wasn't something more sinister at work here because as it turned out physically, genetically and mentally, Malcolm had turned into a very good Solider considering he'd started Shinra life as a Turk. Had Hojo seen something in him and decided to claim the dying Malcolm for himself? Or perhaps even more sinister, had Malcolm really been dying in the first place?

All right so that last thought had been a dark one even for Reno. And it was doing nothing except freaking him out a little anyway.

"I thought Hojo didn't want us involving any of the First Classes?" Reno pointed out.

"Yes, well he was really only talking about a select few. Malcolm, happily, is not one of those few. Being an ex-Turk himself he might be more understanding of what you are trying to accomplish here anyway."

"Agreed," Reno said relieved. Frankly he'd be happy for the backup in his ruse.

Lazard called in Malcolm and Reno watched his future teacher while Lazard outlined the plan to him. Malcolm and Reno weren't exactly strangers having met, though not formally. Unfortunately, this was from a time when Malcolm had been a Turk and Reno had not. Malcolm knew Reno for all the trouble he'd caused in the past and while he never seemed to actively hate Reno in the same way Hawkly and Arkette had, Reno always imagined that Malcolm wouldn't think twice about shooting him given the opportunity.

Malcolm had been Hawkly's partner before his accident and as a result hadn't had the best experiences as a Turk, but he hadn't been as stupid as his partner, either. Malcolm seemed intelligent and capable as a Turk but it was true that perhaps he wasn't especially suited for the work either. He wasn't a very good strategist, wasn't a convincing liar and was probably too into following orders to the letter for his own good. It didn't make him a bad Turk, but it made him an excellent Solider.

He was at least half a foot taller than Reno with very dark brown hair and even darker eyes. The mako glow in those dark eyes made the color seem to be more of a deep purple rather than brown. The effect was actually a little unsettling.

As expected, Malcolm didn't seem entirely thrilled with his role in the plan, but he didn't rant about it like a normal Solider might at the idea of a rat in their midst. When the meeting was over and Malcolm was agreed to help out as much as he could, he gestured for Reno to follow him and the pair left the room. Malcolm didn't seem like much of a talker and remained silent as they made their way to the elevator that would take them to the barracks. Once inside the elevator, Malcolm leant back against the wall and gave Reno a half-hearted smile.

"I'd like to say it's nice to see you again, Reno, but considering past and current circumstances I'd prefer not to start out with a blatant lie like that."

Well, at least he was honest. "Then I'll forgo the speech about how great it is to be here," Reno agreed.

"Tie one on last night did you?" Malcolm asked with a little more of a smile.

"Can you blame me? I feel like I've signed up to be a priest or something, not a ruthless killer. How do you do it?"

Malcolm nodded. "It's hard. I miss steak."

"That's all?"

"I also miss being able to stare at my own reflection without wincing. Yeah, I noticed you looking, everyone does. The mako might make my eyes look a little weird now, but hey, scares the shit out of the enemy."

"Gee, I can't imagine why," Reno responded sarcastically.

"You know you're going to have the same problem. Or rather the opposite problem. If they dose you again you're going to have to wear shades in the dark just so you don't give your own position away."

"You think they'll really dose me again, just to sell my cover?"

"What, Hojo miss an opportunity to douse someone in mako just for the hell of it? He'd have to be a bit of a bastard for that."

"I get your point," Reno said with a sinking feeling. Of course he was going to be dosed again.

"So after we store your stuff we'll go to the training room for a bit of sparring. I want you to pick out a suitable weapon and test whatever if any skills you might already have. No offense, Reno, but it takes years normally to reach the level you're hoping to have by this time next week and while I'll admit, you were always a difficult challenge to face out on the streets, having the ability to run, charm or knife your way out of a problem isn't going to help you here. At least there's some hope if you've been training with Tseng for almost a year, but passing your test is going to take a little something more."

"You forgot bullshit," Reno reminded him, "Bullshitting my way out of a problem is also one of my strong suits."

"Then I hope for both our sakes that your bullshitting skills are strong."

Reno had never had the pleasure of seeing the Solider barracks before, he'd had no real reason to ever be in there and it was only accessible to someone in Solider anyway. The elevator to the barracks was only accessible from the general Soldier level of the tower and was keycard protected as well. Somehow he had expected things to be a little more cramped than they were, and it was if you were a Solider recruit not yet even a rank. Conditions improved as you passed through the levels apparently. The barracks took up four levels beneath the Solider floor. The lowest floor was where the recruits were and it was basically just a bit open floor with bunk beds and no privacy to speak of. There was a shower room and other amenities that took up maybe a third of the floor but other than that the room was a mass of bunks and no partitions. There were a lot of recruits in the training program apparently and almost all the bunks were probably accounted for, but Reno knew that more than half the recruits wouldn't make it to Third Class.

The next floor up was where Reno would be staying for the coming week and it housed the Third Class Soldiers. It looked a little like the dorm area he remembered from Rankin's. Long corridors with separate bedroom doors on either side and a communal shower area halfway along. Three to four Soldiers shared each room but the rooms were big enough so the occupants would not be tripping over each other. Reno would be sharing a room with two other guys who weren't there when Malcolm showed him where to put his stuff so he guessed he'd have to meet them later on. He didn't recognize the names but Malcolm mentioned to him that at least one of his roommates was Turk recruited by Arkette with such a significant look that Reno believed that he'd have to watch himself around that one.

Above that was the Second Classes who had the same kind of setup but only ever had one roommate at a time. Again about half the Third Classes wouldn't reach this level so the Seconds got more room due to less people and more prestige.

Reno wasn't allowed to have a look at the First's Floor but Malcolm told him they got their own rooms and they were nice and spacious. Bathrooms weren't communal and each room had its own facilities. And just like the Second Class floor there was a communal area or lounge where they could hang out without being disturbed for the most part. At present, Shinra probably only had about ten First Class Soldiers and that was about all they ever had at any one time. Sometimes less, and very rarely more than that. Malcolm had two other Second Classes to train as well as having occasional contact with three or four Third Classes that had been singled out for bigger and better things. Unlike the Turks, Soldiers didn't choose who they trained but it obviously helped if your sponsor liked you otherwise your trip up the ranks of Soldier was going to be a very short ride.

They were on their way back up to the general floor when Malcolm told him the game plan.

"Because they're going to be testing you soon for a promotion I can get away with having you train with my other Second Classes which we'll start tomorrow. Today we need to find your weapon and work on making you look good."

Reno didn't own a sword and had hardly ever trained with anything other than wooden weapons. He knew he had to have a sword now and he also knew that although swords might be _the_ Soldier weapon, swords came in all shapes and sizes and he'd have to choose something that best suited his style of fighting.

In the training room Malcolm called up a virtual armory so Reno could see some of his choices. He'd used a katana before, briefly. Tseng had one and it was a beautiful looking piece of steel but he had to admit that it hadn't felt quite right to him.

"You're a lefty aren't you?" Malcolm asked him while Reno was having a look over the weapons on show.

"Good memory."

"You stuck a knife into my thigh Reno, it tends to leave an impression."

Reno had actually forgotten about that and winced a little. Malcolm didn't seem particularly angry, though, so Reno didn't bother apologizing.

"I remember now, you had me cornered. Jeez but you can't half run, Mal. I gotta tell you when you left the Turks I never had a problem with them keeping up in a chase after that."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Okay you're not exactly built like the twig sixteen year old I remember but I think we can safely say that some of the bulkier swords are out of the question. Do you favor your left hand exclusively?"

"Tseng reckons I'm ambidextrous." Reno had had to ask about that one when Tseng told him just to make sure it hadn't been an insult. "But I'd prefer to use my left given the choice."

"Hmm, interesting."

Mal had him run through a few drills with a few different weapons before handing him a mid-length slightly curved sword about two foot long. Reno looked at it and then back at Malcolm.

"I'm not a child you know. I can do better than this."

Then Mal handed him another one exactly the same as the first.

"Flexibility and adaptation. You've got good reflexes and having two weapons will increase your ability to defend and strike back. Besides, if you can make it look good it will be nice and flashy, not to mention impressive, which is what we want. I'll run you through some drills and if this works out we'll see about getting you the real thing."

As it turned out, Reno quite liked the two handed approach and found it was easier to get into than he imagined, since he'd been more or less fighting two handed almost constantly without realizing it. Most recently he'd been using both the nightstick and a firearm or the nightstick and something else and had gotten into the habit of using the nightstick in his right hand as a weapon of defense more often than attack.

Being coordinated with two weapons wasn't a problem with him and he could see Mal's point. Having that extra defensive capability in his off hand would give him a little something extra and would cut down on his need to make a single sword do everything for him, which for Reno would be something he'd have to learn almost entirely from scratch. It took more talent in a way than Reno actually had or had time to learn. But he already had the basics of two weapon fighting down according to Malcolm, so they'd merely have to work on his technique a little. Or at least well enough to fool the casual observer into thinking he was better than he really was.

"You are a Turk, too, don't forget. Just because you have swords doesn't mean you have to rely on that. There's no law saying you can't fight unarmed as well if you think it will give you the advantage. I know you're already pretty good in a fight so use it if you can. Soldiers don't get trained much in hand to hand but that hasn't stopped me from using whatever I could from my time in the Turks, either. Just don't expect you can start shooting people, though."

"That won't be a problem. I kind of sucked at that anyway."

Mal grinned at him. "C'mon, we'll go see the weapons department and get you a real weapon."

Reno already knew the Weapons Development made the Solider weapons. Of course, most recruits bought their own, but some, like Reno, weren't already swordsmen before beginning their careers in Solider or Soldiers who found they were more suited to something else once they started training came to Weapons Development to look over plans, have new plans drawn up or chose from weapons that were already available.

Coming here was unfortunate for Reno for two reasons. Firstly, they didn't have anything to suit him already made and secondly, Scarlet had taken the opportunity to meet and greet them herself after she had seen just who had walked out into her little queendom.

"My you do look dashing Reno. Never in a million years would I ever have imagined seeing you in a solider uniform."

"Well your imagination is pretty overworked most of the time so it doesn't shock me too much." Reno told her.

Scarlet wasn't biting though and just smiled at him a little more broadly. Of course she hadn't been in on the plan for Reno to be a mole and her smug smile clearly showed that she thought she had one over on Reno knowing that he'd been transferred, seeing him in his new uniform and guessing how much he was probably hating everything right now. And what bit the most was he couldn't correct her on any of her assumptions. But Reno would be dead before he let her think she was right about anything.

"I heard of your disgrace from Rufus of course. Oh how the mighty have fallen."

"Fallen?" Reno asked with what he hoped to pass for genuine surprise. "What makes you think being a Turk is somehow better than being in Soldier? I'm not hounded twenty four hours a day for the slightest security hiccup, I'm looking forward to having eight solid hours of sleep a night most of the time and I won't have to come running for every executive with egos bigger than their actual importance. Sounds like bliss to me."

He must have sounded convincing enough because she looked pretty surprised by this information. Of course it helped that there was some small element of truth to it too. He was looking forward to all those things really, just not the rest of it.

Probably assuming her fun wasn't going to happen after all, Scarlet swished off and sent over another person to help them look over some of the designs for weapons.

Maggie walked up and gave Reno an amused once. "If I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes…" she began.

"Haha, can we move on?"

Maggie smiled toward the man standing behind Reno and asked in a tone that suggested the two of them had done this pretty often in the past, "Hiya Mal, what are we looking at?"

"Twin swords. Light, compact and sharp."

Maggie raised an eyebrow at that. "Really, Reno you never cease to amaze me. This is the best news I've had all day because I've been working on something that would be perfect for you."

Maggie took them over to her workbench and showed the two men her design. Reno had never really been one to like swords as a weapon but he could at least get into the idea of getting something, anything, weapon-like to play with. But Maggie in the first few moments he'd looked over the design changed Reno's whole outlook on wanting a sword.

"This is my new twin sword set that I have been dying to find an excuse to make. The weapon as you can see is one piece when sheathed and will measure about forty inches and is a solid piece capable of taking strong blows. With a simple twist the weapon splits as you can also see and you end up with two blades around nineteen inches long, very sharp, very durable. The two blades sheath together when not in use to make the solid baton. Of course you can sheath them separately for easier access if you'd prefer. I can supply you with harnesses for either or bother preferences."

She then went on to describe types of metals used and strength and whatever else and Reno just kinda phased out of the technical aspects. But Reno could see Maggie had really outdone herself. The whole setup screamed variety and flexibility to Reno and he had never believed a sword could be such a thing.

"The whole reason I haven't made it yet was because Scarlet thinks it isn't a real Soldier weapon because the blades are too short and there just aren't really any duel wielding Soldiers. So I was considering trying to make it a Turk weapon but again, swords aren't really their thing because it's just not practical for them. So really Reno, you're the perfect wielder for this."

"You don't have to keep selling it to me, Mags, you had me within the first couple of seconds."

Maggie grinned at the compliment.

"How long?" Malcolm asked.

"Normally something like this would take a while but as it so happens the blade pieces for the prototype are already completed and I just have to make the finishing touches on the sheath. And since I now have a formal request for one I can get onto it today. Still might take a couple of days though, are you in a rush?"

"Pretty much. Because Reno came so highly recommended from the Turks he's due to take his second class exam next week. I need him practicing with it as soon as possible."

Maggie chewed on her lower lip for a few moments. "Well, if you're willing to authorize the overtime I suppose I could have it ready maybe by tomorrow afternoon."

"You're a peach, Maggie," Reno told her.

"No sweat. Just do me proud in the exam. You do good enough with my latest design it won't just be a coup for you, you know. Just remember to make me look good too."

**TBC**

Notes: Okay well it's the start of Reno's Solider career and it looks…um…promising

_Please review,_

_AF_


	10. Glow In The Dark

**Nothing To Say**

**Chapter 10**

**By AF & Ace**

**Glow In The Dark**

The day passed pretty slowly for Reno after that. He didn't have a weapon to train with and considering it was a brand new type of design, they couldn't even simulate it in the training room. So once they got back to the Soldier floor, Malcolm left to train some of his other recruits while Reno went off in search of something to eat.

It was well past lunchtime but there were still a few Soldiers hanging around in the mess hall when he entered. Reno didn't really feel up to his making nice routine and instead went straight over to get some food and sit at a vacant table near the back of the room to eat. Of course he'd already been warned about the Soldier diet but the amount of raw greens on his plate made him think that even a rabbit would feel ill to look at it. It tasted as bland as it looked but Reno was pretty hungry and he found that if he just ate it without thinking about it too much that he could at least get most of it down.

He was just about to get up again when he was joined by a Second Class with a big smile.

"Hey Drew," Reno greeted.

"I know you were talking about joining Soldier, but I never thought I'd actually see you in the uniform."

"Stranger things, hey."

Drew started eating his own lunch in between talking to Reno.

"How are you liking things so far?"

"Haven't done a lot yet," Reno confessed. "Getting a weapon hopefully tomorrow so then I'll start training. I have to see Hojo this afternoon though."

Drew gave him a sympathetic grimace. "I'd feel sorry for you, but I have an appointment tomorrow myself. I hear you're taking your test next week. Who's your trainer?"

"Malcom Reyner."

"Hey me too! Not surprising I suppose. He's probably the best one to train an ex-Turk after all. You're in pretty good hands though, Mal's really good."

"Yeah and if I pass we might be roomies."

Drew almost choked on a carrot. "What?" he asked when he could breathe again.

Reno was surprised at the reaction. He had always gotten the strong impression that Drew liked him and considered him a friend for whatever unfathomable reason. He hadn't once thought that Drew might take this news badly.

"Well Rubin went AWOL right? There's only two second class Soldiers that don't have roommates. It'll either be you or the other guy. C'mon Drew, we're friends aren't we, why do you just look like I told you I'm a chocobo?"

"Of course we're friends", Drew told him with a sick sort of smile. "Why wouldn't I want you as a roommate?"

Good question. Of course it was possible Drew had just been being nice to him because Reno had helped him spar for the past few months but he couldn't help but think there was something else going on here. Well whatever was wrong, Reno didn't feel like pestering Drew about it. He was already late to see Hojo as it was.

So after saying his goodbyes to Drew, Reno got up and headed to the Soldier lab to find the Professor. Hojo was waiting for him, rather impatiently, in what looked like an examination room from a horror book. Everything was white, shiny and sharp looking. There was no one else present and Reno took a seat on the examination table after Hojo gestured for him to do so.

This was the first time Reno had been alone in a room with the other man for any length of time while he was conscious. As a Turk, Reno had rarely ever seen the Professor because the Science Department dealt with Tseng directly so Reno hadn't had a great amount of time to get much of an impression of the man. From what he had gathered, Hojo was single minded about his work to the point of obsessive and that tended to give him a bit of a creepy air. Reno was actually surprised the important doctor was seeing him himself when he had a veritable army of techs to boss about. But of course, Hojo was in on their plan and the techs were not.

"We will need a blood sample Mr Anderson. We will check for disease and sickness. I also wish to determine how much mako is in your blood from your previous infusion." Hojo then spent a few uncomfortable moments peering into Reno's eyes before he continued. "But I can see already we will need to give you a stronger dose. No one with any experience with Soldier would believe you were one if they looked at your eyes."

Yep, that's pretty much what Reno had expected. While Hojo took some blood Reno asked, "So if I get dosed again, what will it do to me?"

"Not a lot," Hojo remarked with a sigh. "There is only so much mako can do for your body after the first dose. It will strengthen your body further but you will barely notice the change. But if we were really going to give you the Jenova enhancements, your body would require the larger dose to prevent cellular degradation. We won't go that far of course, but I have been told you must look the part, yes?"

"Yeah," Reno agreed reluctantly.

"Then you will require another dose. But I will verify that with the blood test. Now please strip, I also need to check the rest of you over to complete your physical."

"Awesome," Reno muttered.

Reno had been through physicals in the past because for some odd reason every sixth months or so Shinra wanted to know everything from your physical fitness levels to what you had for breakfast on that particular morning. However those physicals were a quick once over compared to this. By the time it was over Reno had left the lab sore, tired and feeling more than a little molested and was very much looking for a shower and hitting his bunk. The array of tests had taken more than four hours and though it was still a little early for sleep, it wasn't _too_ early.

Reno got into the barracks lift and went back to his room. Here and there was evidence that his roommates had already come and gone during some part of the day but they were all absent now. Reno thankfully got out of his uniform, wrapped a towel around his waist and grabbed whatever else he'd need in the bathroom and went down the corridor in great anticipation of the shower to come.

A few Soldiers were already taking a shower and Reno had the impression as he was crossing the room to a vacant showerhead that eyes were on him and silent conversations were going on. This was the first evidence he'd had of being perhaps unwelcome here and it was so slight Reno pretended he didn't notice the looks at all.

By the time he finished up he was the only one left in the shower room but when Reno turned off the faucet a group of fully dressed second classes stepped into the tiled white room all with their eyes on him. He could hardly pretend to ignore them.

"Can I help you guys?" Reno asked with all the innocence he could muster.

"You can get the hell out." A man with sandy hair standing at the front of the group told him.

"I would, but you're standing in the doorway," Reno replied, pretending not to know what he really meant.

"Out of Soldier. You aren't welcome."

At this point Reno started weighing up his options for the coming fight. There were four guys standing in front of him, unarmed. He was one man, naked and most definitely unarmed. But these were Soldiers and he was a Turk, and that meant he wasn't totally outclassed here.

If a group of Soldiers got into a fist fight with any normal person, their strength alone would mean that person would spend the remainder of the night looking for their teeth on the sidewalk. But they weren't trained to kill people with their bare hands like Reno was either, so it was entirely possible that Reno could come out of any scuffle ahead with minimal if any blood loss for him.

The question was, what sort of damage he wanted to inflict here? Pounding Soldiers into the ground sounded like fun but Reno wasn't going to make any friends that way. Allowing them to beat him to a bloody pulp might not help with respect points either. He might still talk his way out of it, but he knew a welcoming committee when he saw one and these men weren't interested in talking.

"Just out of curiosity," Reno began as the men began to fan out around him. "Is this because I was a Turk or is it personal?"

"The Turks have a lot to answer for." The man told him. "And what gives you the right to just waltz in here and take up rank? We worked for years to get where we are; you have no right be to in our Class."

"So hate the person and not the system, is that it? That's a pretty fucked up philosophy."

Reno didn't get an answer. He'd been watching the men as much as he could while they were surrounding him and luckily for him they seemed to believe in the tried and true tactic of stupidity, which meant taking turns.

An arm went around his throat from behind, probably with the intention of holding him still while the others pummeled him. But Reno shifted his weight, bent forward and flipped the man over his head. The man landed badly and wasn't getting up in any hurry. He felt the back of his knee give when someone kicked him, causing him to fall onto that knee hard, but it did put him in a prime position to hit the guy advancing to the front of him in a very vulnerable area. While that guy was a little bent over, Reno got painfully back onto his feet and brought his knee up into the man's face.

Then he was grabbed around the middle from behind and lifted off his feet. Reno threw his head back into what he hoped and turned out to be was the guy's face and the guy dropped him. The slick tiles made him slip just a bit, though, so Reno couldn't dodge the incoming fist to the face. He knew he'd have to take a few hits, but these Soldiers hit hard and he felt the blood running down from his broken nose in seconds. But he'd done some damage, made a good show for himself and now it was time to take some hurt.

Reno had decided early on that he was going to aim for a draw. He received another hit, this time to the ribs - which hurt more than he'd imagined it might- but managed to throw his own punch and hit the man squarely in the jaw before two more men walked into the showers. They didn't seem to be in on the plot to beat up the Turk in their midst, since they were dressed only in towels, but Reno was still surprised when they rushed over to break up the fight. They held back their fellow Soldiers from beating him up further and the two remaining Soldiers weren't exactly up to fighting anymore anyway. Reno didn't try to continue either. He just clutched his ribs and focused on breathing.

What was most disturbing to him was the knowledge that he could have killed at least two of the men that had been attacking him. And for once it wasn't ego driven bravado on his part that made him think that. The only reason Reno had been hit at all was because he'd been holding back from doing anything terminal to the Soldiers. But the thought alone that he'd known how to kill them and how that thought had popped into his head first was the first sign to Reno of what Tseng was actually making him into. And he was thankful that the others had intervened because even as hurt as he was, Reno didn't trust that this new killer instinct might not have taken over and he'd done something irrevocably fatal.

Once the fight was broken up, the group of Soldiers, Reno included, were marched back up to the labs to have their wounds treated with materia. A lab assistant healed him and Reno felt his breath become easier and realized one of his ribs must have been broken.

Malcom walked into the treatment room just as the tech was leaving. They conferred for a little while but when he was gone Malcom gave Reno A Look.

"They started it," Reno protested.

"You're lucky that they didn't finish it too," Mal pointed out.

"Or me." Reno muttered softly.

Malcom heard it, though. He'd probably known what Reno had meant.

"Considering Tseng has been training you how best to kill people for the past year or so I admire your restraint, but you're hardly blending in, are you?"

Reno shrugged, "What do expect me to do? They wanted to fight and as far as I could see, the best outcome would have been a draw."

"I don't disagree, Reno, and you don't need to explain yourself to me, I'm not Tseng. You're right, of course. If you'd been too heavy handed you'd still just be seen as a Turk. If you'd taken the hits you would have lost the respect of the others. Or you'd be dead. Not all third Class Soldiers have been infused and those that have haven't learnt how to temper their new strength." Malcom folded his arms across his chest and looked sternly at Reno. "But you could have evaded their hits, you could have evaded the fight altogether but you didn't. It was probably a choice you never even considered. The fact that you were fighting at all will not do you any favors in trying to make you look good."

"Oh I dunno, it shows I'm not a happy camper doesn't it? They seem to target the disgruntled after all."

"This is your show, whatever you think is best. But just so you know, even though I know you didn't start it, fighting between the Soldiers is strictly forbidden so try to act like I've been yelling and screaming at you if you can manage it."

"I'll try to act sullen, it shouldn't be a stretch."

* * *

><p>As it turned out, the ringleader in the little scene earlier was one of Reno's new roommates. Reno didn't recognize the other one but he seemed friendly enough. The one that didn't like him glared at him the moment Reno entered the room and stared at him while he got ready for bed. He figured the guy was supposed to be intimidating, but Reno had met meaner stares before. But just in case the guy felt like starting something, Reno gave him a bit of advice.<p>

"I know we got off on the wrong foot," Reno began, getting into bed. "But I hope we can get past that. But just in case you feel like messing with me while I'm asleep, I feel, in the interests of not dwelling on the past, I should warn you that I've been sleeping with a knife under my pillow since I was five and I wake really easily." Reno reached underneath said pillow and pulled out an eight-inch long shiny dagger to show him. "I almost knifed my best friend once when he tried to wake me, I did it before I'd even opened my eyes. And I _liked _him. Just to give you a friendly heads up."

The guy's eyes went wide when Reno showed him the knife and Reno put it back underneath his pillow, hand still holding the hilt and closed his eyes. He didn't fear the guy enough to lose any sleep over the matter.

* * *

><p>"Mr Anderson, would you prefer the good news or the not so good news first?"<p>

Reno swallowed thickly. "Give me the bad news first, Doc. I think I'd like to finish this session on a high today if it's all the same."

"The bad news is that although you are still a relatively young man you have the health of someone twice your age. Binge drinking, eating processed food and smoking way too much is having a terrible effect on your health. Or it would be if you had not been fortunate enough to be infused last year."

Reno was skeptical about that. Maybe he didn't have the best habits in the world, but he doubted it was as dire as Hojo made it sound. He couldn't be any worse off than any other person his age in Midgar.

"So I'm gonna have a heart attack next week if I don't have another infusion, is that it?" Reno asked knowingly.

"Of course not, I am not trying to coerce you here. You will, I believe, have the treatment if I tell you that you must even if you were in the best of health. But compared the other Soldiers, your health is not good. And in the interests of improving it, we will need to up your dose of daily vitamins to include some boosters and such. I will give you a list of what you must have and you will need to give it to Marcus so he can give you the appropriate pills with your breakfast."

Reno had seen this before though he hadn't started taking whatever it was the others were taking. Apparently joining in with the daily doses of vitamins wasn't going to have any bad effects on him because it wasn't medication as such and so, in the hopes of blending in, he had agreed to chugging the pills with the rest of Soldier. Individually catered doses of pills were given out each morning with breakfast, matched to each individual Soldier's needs, making the kitchen here seem less like a kitchen and more like a pharmacy.

Actually Reno could see a new future in dining for Midgar's elite, not just for the Soldiers.

"Great."

But Reno felt a little better about Hojo's concerns about his health anyway. Hojo said he was in bad health compared to those already in Soldier. That was like saying that Reno was very healthy in comparison to someone who had died three weeks ago. An eighty year old in a coma was healthy with that comparison. Tseng was probably unhealthy compared to the average Soldier who had been living on a very closely monitored eating, training and behavior regiment for years and Tseng was about as healthy as a very busy man with a tight schedule could be. He ate right when he did get to eat, he hardly drank these days and he kept in shape. But he still wouldn't be up to par with Soldier.

"Don't sound so negative," Hojo told him. "You must blend in I am told, so you might as well reap the benefits of it while you are able to."

"Uh-huh, so when do my benefits start, exactly?"

"Tomorrow with breakfast you will begin your boosters but I would like to give you your infusion tonight. After a day's training, being tired will relax your body and the infusion will take better. Unfortunately unlike your last infusion when you were comatose you will be awake for this one and we cannot medically sedate you else it will interfere with the process. I have been told the process can be quite painful."

"I'm still waiting for the good news here, Doc."

Hojo gave him a look as though the good news should be obvious. "You are getting near to the full Soldier treatment, how can you not be pleased about that?"

Reno sighed. "Pretty easily, actually."

* * *

><p>Apparently pumping the vast amounts of mako necessary for a proper Soldier infusion into the Shinra Building was impossible. Even the smaller dose Reno had had earlier on in his career had to be done elsewhere. He'd been unconscious and near death at the time, for which Reno was grateful. At least this time around he was going into it fairly unknowingly. Other than Hojo telling him that it was going to be painful.<p>

Reactor One was an impressive structure and a little different from the others for a few reasons. For one thing it was the oldest reactor but because the science department used it for their mako experiments it was also the most rigorously looked after out of the eight. It pumped out the least power because it was old but most of its power was fed directly into the Shinra Building for its day-to-day running needs. It was also where the mako infusions were done for Soldier. In the basement levels of the reactor there was a room of pods that were hooked up to the main mako pump via a few purifying and treatment processing machines first. Normally if a person was directly doused in mako they would suffer from mako poisoning that almost always resulted in cell mutation, a disturbance in brain function, degradation of internal organs and death.

If you asked Reno, death was probably the most preferable option of the four, but Shinra in all their scientific brilliance had developed a method of slow poisoning which didn't sound so fantastic at first until you understood what that meant. The process was slow and the mako diluted with many secret herbs and spices but it meant that while the mako was slowly trying to kill you, your body tried to fight back by absorbing the mako and becoming stronger in the process, until the mako was infused into all your cells and could fight off a lot of various things, including further mako poisoning. It was all pretty confusing to Reno and didn't make a lot of sense, but he had been assured that if he could understand the science behind it, he would be less worried.

Reno was the only one there that night for treatment and apparently that was pretty odd. Hojo told him it was because he'd been already infused and he needed to start Reno on a higher dose than normal. Since Hojo couldn't regulate the dose for each individual pod so Reno would have to go it alone.

He was also told that he was going to remain in the pod for more than five hours, which was another unpleasant development. Now Reno knew why Mal, upon learning about what was happening tonight, had told him that he would see him the day after tomorrow for training. Reno had thought he might be getting the day off to relax, but it seemed now he was just getting the day off to sleep and recover.

Part of the treatment process meant that oxygen would be fed directly into the pod and he'd be breathing liquid for the duration of the infusion and Reno wasn't looking forward to that, either. It sounded like drowning without there actually being an end to it. His body would get the required oxygen it needed but Reno wouldn't be able to take a proper breath the entire time.

So it was with more than a little reluctance that Reno stepped into the pod, naked save for a pair of specially designed, skin tight short shorts, and watched as they sealed him in.

He heard a rushing sound and the pod started to fill with the bright green treated mako from below. A few moments after it touched his feet, Reno could understand what Hojo meant about pain. It had started as a tingling sort of sensation at first that had changed to an almost burning feeling within those few moments. But by the time the liquid had crept up to his waist his feet felt like they were on fire and the sensation was slowly creeping up his body as the mako continued to rise and Reno began to panic a little. He couldn't imagine having the burning liquid in his lungs and eyes and the closer it got, the more freaked out he became.

Hojo must have been monitoring his vitals because when Reno did focus on him outside the tube at the control panel he clearly mouthed the words, 'calm down'.

Sage advice, if he didn't calm down Reno might give himself a stroke. So he closed his eyes took in a few deep breaths and willed himself to calm. It didn't completely work but he wasn't hyperventilating anymore and the pain seemed have settled down a bit. But that was because his body might have been going a little numb. Whether it was from shock or the mako Reno didn't know and didn't really care at that point.

He felt the mako lap at his chin and start to creep up the sides of his face. Reno took in one last breath before it covered up his head completely and he was entirely submersed. Hojo had told him before that he must open his eyes at least for a little while to make sure the mako had full access to affect them and Reno did so now, quickly, to get it over with. He sure as hell didn't want to go through this again just because not every cell in his body was properly doused the first time. The pain was searing and Reno's reflex was to yell out from the pain. His body couldn't fight the reaction and he ended up taking the liquid into his lungs at the same time. Just as Reno thought, he had the most unpleasant sensation of drowning and it took his lungs some time to get over the shock and start working at taking in the oxygen the liquid provided.

Reno reached a near state of somewhat calm as his eyesight cleared and he could start to see outside the tube again. His vision was green and a little distorted but he watched the techs and Hojo looking a few of the machines over with calm casual movements that told him everything was going okay with the infusion. Reno's entire body was tingling with a dull burning that was now bearable due to the off and on numbness he was also experiencing. His muscles relaxed a little as he floated and a sort of weariness crept over him. Breathing was difficult but not impossible. Reno's mind seemed to wander in and out of consciousness for a while. A voice floating through the liquid snapped his attention back into focus.

"I didn't realize they would do this to you."

Tseng stood outside the pod with a headset on. Hojo was still playing with his machines in the background, but apparently the other techs had been dismissed for the night. Reno couldn't quite make out Tseng's expression in detail, but he didn't look happy.

Reno couldn't talk back so he tried shrugging instead. It was a poor effort and didn't really work. He tried to look like he wasn't finding it so bad, but proper facial expressions were a little beyond him at this point. He was just so weary.

"You should have said something." Tseng's voice was somehow floating through the liquid in the pod. It was almost like he could hear the voice in his head.

How Tseng even knew he was here was a mystery. They had planned on a face-to-face status report sometime through the week, but Reno hadn't been able to get away for long enough or think of a safe enough way to make one. He hadn't thought Tseng would have a problem with this anyway because he was all about pushing yourself to achieve your goals no matter the cost to yourself. But then Tseng's infusion would have been just like this one and Reno could understand not wanting another person to endure it unnecessarily. And yes, he could have refused the treatment and hoped that whatever mako he did have in his system was enough to fool their enemy but he'd gotten into the habit of following the idea that you had to suffer sometimes to achieve anything just like Tseng always told him. Though in hindsight, now knowing what it was going to be like, he might have told them to shove the mako up their own assholes and packed the mission in altogether. Hindsight was a horrible thing sometimes.

"After you have rested tomorrow you will go up to the roof for some fresh air in the afternoon to watch the sun set."

Reno managed a slight nod.

* * *

><p>Reno had begun to think he might remain in this tube forever. But with a large beep he felt the pod's contents shift a little and it began draining out. When his feet touched the bottom he found that his legs couldn't take his weight and he slumped against the side of the pod till it was empty and a new set of techs opened up the door for him. Reno couldn't move much at first, but the techs had apparently been ready for this. They helped him get dried off showered and dressed before depositing him into a van to take him back to the Shinra Building.<p>

By the time he got back onto the Soldier floor he was moving under his own steam but only barely. Before he could go to his room to lie down though he was fielded by Drew who stepped into the elevator after him and pressed the button for the Second Class barracks.

"You can't go to your room in this state. Mal told me you had your infusion last night. You'll be dead to the world for the next couple of hours at least and your roommate will probably slit your throat without you waking up. You can sleep in my room."

Reno nodded, not in the slightest mood to argue or even speak. He followed Drew into his room and climbed into the bed that had previously been occupied by Drew's old roommate. As soon as his head hit the pillow he was out like a light.

* * *

><p>Drew woke him up in the late afternoon and Reno stretched and groaned.<p>

"What the fuck?" He muttered.

"You mumbled something before you passed out about having to get up before five. I only just got back from training and it's already five past."

Drew must have taken off his boots before he left for training this morning and Reno sat up groggily to put them back on while Drew watched him with concern.

"You're going to flip."

"Huh, what?" Reno asked bent over and fighting a losing battle with his shoelaces.

"I just want to prepare you before you look in the mirror, that's all. You have to keep in mind that'll it'll always look worse the day after the treatment, It'll fade a little with time."

It took Reno's fuzzy mind a little while to catch up to what Drew was trying to tell him. He felt like he'd been just gotten out of a twelve-hour fight with a burley wrestler, drank the wrestler's weight in vodka, and then slept for a week. But eventually he caught up. Forgetting his shoe laces he went over to the room's only mirror and looked at his face.

The reflection of his own eyes almost made them hard to see. But when he managed to focus and take in it, Reno stopped breathing for a moment and stared.

His eyes before any infusion had been a light sort of blue shot through with the faintest traces of green. After the first infusion his glowing eyes had gotten brighter and a little greener but still remained a brighter version of his original eye color. What looked back at him now was something else. Reno's eyes were an incandescent shade of teal where the blue and hints of green looked melted into one another. He'd expected a change but he hadn't realized how drastic it would be.

"Fuck."

* * *

><p>Tseng was already on the roof when Reno walked out. The roof was cleared of employees, just as he had expected it would be. Reno wore sunglasses, but not because of his new eye color but rather because of an odd light sensitivity he was experiencing at the moment. Drew had told him it would go away overnight, but it had been giving him a headache till he put on the glasses.<p>

Tseng had either not noticed his arrival yet or was simply not turning around. Probably the latter. Reno got the distinct impression he was in trouble but he could hardly care at this point in time. Tseng was standing at the edge, looking off toward the sunset. Reno took his shades off, he might as well get this over with.

"I don't get it," Reno began. "Why not bleach my teeth or make my hair shiny, why does it have to make my eyes glow?"

"I don't know," Tseng replied. "It just does."

"Seems a little weird to me."

Tseng turned to face him and Reno noted the mild surprise on his face. He realized that this was Tseng's first moment seeing Soldier Reno and Reno realized that he must look almost like a different person. He was kitted out in the full Soldier uniform, he had taken to wearing his hair, these days too long to keep loose, tied up in a high ponytail so it didn't get in his way or come loose during his hours of training so that only his bangs now threatened his eyes. Not to mention his brand new even more brightly glowing mako eyes. In the dimming light they would seem especially vibrant.

"You can close your mouth Tseng, I know I look hot."

"You stupid asshole," Tseng told him, surprise turned to anger in minutes. "You do realize that mako infusions alter your body chemistry don't you? What happened to you last night didn't just make your eyes glow brighter."

"I was already infused," Reno said shrugging. "What's a little bit more going to hurt on top of what was already done?"

"I don't know. Actually nobody really knows because people who have gotten the same dose as you are generally in Soldier and their life expectancies are pretty short a lot of the time. Which brings me to my point, Reno. Who really knows what the long term effects might be?"

"You're infused," Reno pointed out.

"Not as much as you have been."

"You can't get pissy at me for seeing the mission through. You try and tell me I don't have the will to exceed and then berate me when I go above and beyond. C'mon, Tseng, you can't have it both ways."

"If this is some attempt to get back at me-"

"I'm not getting back at you. Actually I didn't think for a moment that you would object. You told me to blend in, so I am. Hojo told me that the infusion will make me a little stronger and a little hardier too and you seem to want both those things from me. It never occurred to me that you'd be pissed off." Reno told him honestly.

Reno hadn't meant to but he got the impression that Tseng was blaming himself for this. He had pushed Reno to be stronger and Reno had done something pretty drastic to achieve that little bit more strength.

"The mission wasn't worth the ordeal," Tseng told him, a lot calmer than he was a few moments before. "When you were first infused you were unconscious and because the treatment was light you would not have experienced the same pain as you did last night even had you been awake for it. The more they dose you, the more it's supposed to hurt. You must have been in a lot of pain and finding a threat to a few wayward Soldiers was not worth it. And I think you know that."

"I really didn't think it was going to be such a big deal. Hojo just seemed to treat it as a matter of course."

"Of course he would. Everything he does is just a chance for him to experiment and gain more data on a subject he still knows not everything about. He'd infuse us all if he had his way."

"Okay so I was suckered in, so what? I'll get over the experience and I have glow in the dark eyeballs. You gotta admit that's pretty cool."

"And how is that a good thing exactly?"

"I'll never need a torch?" Reno offered pathetically.

"Stop trying to make it sound like it doesn't bother you," Tseng told him. "You were livid when you found out about the first infusion."

"Yeah and you said it was perfectly safe, I remember that, too."

"The doses you had were perfectly safe, but who knows now. You've been dosed with a Soldier's measure of mako which is only ever done to ready them for Jenova enhancements, something you will never have. I honestly don't know how safe it is for you, now."

"You think I might go mental like that guy in the pipe?"

"You always did like to find out the facts the hard way, Reno. Admit something to me at least, what was your reaction when you saw what your eyes looked like?"

"I think I stopped breathing," Reno said after a moment's hesitation, deciding to give up the pretense that nothing about this was bothering him. "They're pretty bright, aren't they?"

"It'll fade," Tseng told him taking pity on him. "It will never go completely, but it will fade enough so people won't double take every time they look at you. But for now I wouldn't recommend going on any night stealth missions."

Reno gave Tseng a crooked and not particularly amused smile. "You made a funny, Tseng, good for you. Where's Rude, by the way, didn't want him here to witness the dressing down?"

"Something like that. So apart from your epic stupidity do you have any progress to report?"

"Not really much I can do until my test. They got Malcom to train me and watch out for me. Lazard told me you already signed off on it."

Tseng raised an eyebrow at that. "I was told they were going to tell at least one First but I didn't know it would be Malcom."

"Something wrong with that?"

"No, he was probably the best choice considering."

"But…" Reno prompted.

"Well, he doesn't like you much for a start. You did stab him a few years ago."

"He's mostly forgive and forget about that, actually. He seems pretty mellow to me, what aren't you telling me about him?"

"I didn't mean to make you think there was anything wrong with him. But there is something you must understand about Malcom; he is very single-minded about his work."

"Gee, that sounds familiar," Reno said sarcastically.

"You don't understand. What job does Soldier do for Shinra?"

"They're elite army, they kill people and…oh. You mean he's a bit of a sadist."

"No, not really. I don't think Malcom ever took a special glee in his work but he doesn't have much of a conscience either. If he were ordered to kill a village full of people he would do so, methodically, calmly and then he would fall asleep that night without a care in the world. He never really gets overly angry, upset, happy, nothing really. He is always, as you say, mellow and calm."

"Great, so he's a sociopath lacking the proper drive."

"That's one way of putting it."

"Oh well," Reno said yawning. "If that's the worst of it, I think I can handle it. So you've berated me and gotten the status update, such as it was. Was there anything else? I think I could still sleep for another ten hours."

"Fine, you are dismissed."

Reno turned to leave but turned back again on his way to the door. "By the way, how's Rude doing?"

"He's fitting in well. You're right, he is a good investigator."

"Good. I like him, I think we should keep him."

Tseng gave him a surprised sort of half smile. "I'll be sure to let him know."

"So, are you enjoying a Reno-less Turks?"

"Greatly."

Reno grinned. "I knew it, you miss me."

"Go away, Reno."

TBC

* * *

><p><em>Notes: Aww, I think Tseng is missing him, how sweet. Lol. How did everyone like the mako infusion? <em>

_Sorry about the delay, hectic time of year, what can I say. _


End file.
